


A Tale of Two Spirits and the Scourers Flight

by jessemunoz23



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Elder Wand (Harry Potter), Family Drama, Gen, Gender Issues, Ilvermorny, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Other, Relationship(s), Second War with Voldemort, Slytherin Harry Potter, Trans Character, Wizarding World (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessemunoz23/pseuds/jessemunoz23
Relationships: Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Lucius Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	A Tale of Two Spirits and the Scourers Flight

The Snake and the Snare

“Listen to my every command. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to abandon me and save yourself, you do so, no questions asked. Do you understand?” He had never seen his grandmother’s eyes as intense as when she spoke this direction to him. It was this intense determination from her that signaled the only acceptable response was, “yes, I understand, grandmama.”  
He wasn’t sure exactly where in the world they were. They could have still been in Mexico or somewhere across the Frontera. He had memorized their route from beginning to end and by now, they should have already encountered the Rio Grande but no matter how hard he strained his eyes looking over and over across the bare desert, there was no sign of water to be found.  
They knew something like this could happen— they understood the risk they assumed searching for a new life, a better one, a necessary one. Somewhere along the way, 5 miles ago, maybe, the coyotes driving the van with a pile of immigrants hidden inside, himself included, suddenly stopped in their tracks. The driver threw the van doors open and both men, with guns drawn, ordered the heap of passengers inside, out. The driver demanded all the passengers, the youngest, a mere infant, to empty their pockets of any valuables at once.  
“Con prisa,” he barked in a crying young woman’s face. Then the man looked right at him and with a snarl, said, “tu sigues!”  
Timo Buendia was a boy of 15, tall, lanky with dark unkept hair that barely reflected any light. He was the only child in town who always stood with a popped hip and everyone he encountered always told him he had a perfect nose. As a boy, he often wondered where he belonged, certainly it wasn’t in the small village he grew up in where the neighborhood boys rough housed in the front yards of their adobe homes or kicked the soccer ball around in the street. Instead, Timo spent the majority of his time with his grandmama, who told him the fascinating histories of his famous ancestors and explained to him just why his family name, Buendia, became disgraced by the people in their village.  
The Buendias always lived furthest from the center of the village, on a tall hill near a river. The dark, dilapidated family estate built and rebuilt over many generations was a sight for the villagers who passed by. Once, a beautiful Mexican manor now, was run down with rusted metal gates, aged shingles, exposed wood, years dead plants, animals embalmed, relics, ruins and statues. All obvious cues for the village children’s unwavering opinion that the Buendia house was haunted. The Buendias were outcast for generations, many in the family having been believed to possess magical abilities and because of his grandmother’s status as a great curandera, the family were considered by the villagers to be dark arts practitioners.  
In reality, Timo’s mother worked two jobs, severely beneath her skill as a very capable medicine maker, around the clock to keep the family home and care for her aging mother, Grandmama Buendia. She often took on more work to keep busy. The truth was, she welcomed the distraction after the death of her first child and subsequent divorce from her husband. Consequently, too much work came at the expense of fostering a relationship with her youngest son, Timo, who eventually took to his grandmother instead.  
Grandmama Buendia took her daughter into the family home after her eldest grandchild’s death. When her daughter and grandson appeared on her doorstep, Timo's mother walked straight into the bathroom and cried wailing for hours. His grandmother looked down at a five-year-old Timo, eyes wide full of questions and took him by the hand into the backyard’s delicately curated greenhouse garden.  
“Will mama be okay?” baby Timo looked up at his grandmama, face wrinkled with wisdom and tiredness. The old woman had a lifetime of answers to offer.  
She offered her rough hand, decades of lived life in her skin, and the young boy took it.  
“Do you see these leaves,” she showed him ones they’d collected, “they come from these special bushes. They were planted many years ago for the medicines we make for the jente down in the village when they’re sick. The special bushes grow leaves that soon fall into the earth and after it rains, those leaves grow into new bushes: stronger ones, better ones. One day, if you’re very lucky, you will shed your leaves and when you’re gone, you too will be buried in the earth. And if you’re not so lucky, your heart will break, and it will no longer matter if you are buried or not.”  
Timo woke later that night in the living area of his grandmother’s home to an argument between her and his mother. The world was nearly pitch black under the dark velvet curtains that covered the cobwebbed bay windows. Timo sat up on the dark Victorian sofa and eavesdropped on the shouting match in the next room.  
“He may not know it yet,” said his mother, “but he’s already started showing signs.”  
“It is too early. He is far too young. And we are not ready,” said his grandmama calmly.  
“I can do it, mama!” pleaded his mother. “I’m strong enough!”  
“I’m not,” his grandmother replied. “I’m an old woman. And what about Timo?”  
“Timo will have protection, you know that. And you know that if it weren’t for him—"  
“He’s your son! My grandson! And he’s only a boy. If he’s to be ready, adequately prepared someday, he will need our guidance.”  
“What about what I need? I need him back,” his mother sobbed.  
“No magic will bring him back, mija,” his grandmother said consolingly.  
“I can’t raise the boy alone. Will you help me, mama?” She cried into her mother’s lap.  
Timo, stung by his mother’s inadvertent disdain, eyes full of tears, face red hot, buried his head into the decorative pillows and let out a guttural cry. He was only a child and didn’t fully understand his own condition but he did know that as long as he could hear the sound of his voice- his muffled screaming in the couch, he could bare the burning in his stomach, the heat that rose into his throat, that covered his face and exploded out of his mouth, “AHHHHH!”  
When the screaming left him out of breath, he lifted his head out of the pillows to find his mother and grandmother standing over him in shock, velvet curtains in shreds, bay windows glass shattered. He was a wizard too.  
When Timo’s mother revealed the news of their immigration, only weeks before, he was initially reluctant to the idea. Later, after making a deal with his grandmother, he hoped to make the risky trip across the border quickly and without much effort, never imagining it would go anything like this, stranded at gunpoint in the middle of the hot desert.  
The passengers emptied their, already very bare, pockets, as they were allowed only to take essentials on the trip. With guns to their heads, most had hands clasped over their mouths as tears rolled down their cheeks, others curled in balls on the desert sand, faced down as the driver and his henchman spat orders and waved the guns in their faces.  
Guns did not scare Timo or his grandmother. From where they came, they faced far greater dangers than man made weapons. But they did fear for the lives of the other passengers, most spending their entire life’s savings to make this ill-fated trek to the States. Timo began to feel guilty that he was, even in part, looking forward to the trek, while the rest were risking their lives for the same journey.  
When one woman didn’t move fast enough for the driver, he used the butt of the gun to smash into the woman’s neck. Timo purposefully positioned himself in between them, ignoring his grandmother’s exclamation to stand down.  
“Leave now. I don’t want to hurt you,” Timo, looked into the men’s faces with clear intention.  
“Foolish boy,” the driver laughed, “you want your grandmother to watch you die?”  
The driver raised his finger to the trigger and in the same instant Timo and his grandmother drew small round clay balls from pouches they carried under their shirts but before any of them could make a move, from out of the corner of his eye, Timo noticed it first.  
“Timo RUN!” yelled his grandmother. And true to his promise to follow her every direction, he immediately ran towards her. Out from behind the van, a horrible, gargantuan, shadow like creature, picked up the van over its head and crushed the driver and his henchman with it, as they sprayed it with bullets to no avail. The passengers quickly scattered but none were faster than the creature; in just a few swift moves, he made easy work of the passengers.  
Timo and his grandmother had never seen the creature before, but she had heard of its kind.  
“El condido,” she whispered, smashing a clay ball into the earth in front of her and her grandson. When the creature finished off any surviving passengers, it charged towards them, but he was blocked by an invisible barrier made by the magical clay ball. From behind the barrier, Timo threw the ball he palmed in his hand at the base of the creature and seconds later a small explosion knocked it off its feet. In a fury, the creature rammed its head and body into the magical barrier over and over again. After a few seconds, it stopped, surveyed the area around it and vanished behind a cactus.  
Timo began to move out of the shield’s range before being stopped by his grandmother. “It is not gone, Mijo,” she said, keeping her eye on the exact location she last saw the creature. “Those creatures can hide in any shadow. Stay close.”  
They moved tightly, in a circle around the cactus, his grandmother smashing a clay ball into the earth every few steps. When she declared the coast clear, they came out from behind the barrier and his grandmother began to inspect the smashed van.  
“Why would they stop in the middle of the night?” Timo asked as he helped his grandmother pry the passenger door open.  
“I can’t say for certain,” she told him, “but I would bet it has something to do with you.”  
She read through documents she found in the van’s glove compartment until she stopped on one page and dropped the rest of the papers onto the desert ground.  
“Me? What do you mean? What is it, grandmama?” He asked her.  
“Listen to me, Timo,” she grabbed his arms, her eyes as intense as he’d ever seen them. “If I say run, you run…”  
She drew a sepia photo from her pocket of a small boy and girl in front of a mirror both in sequin heels many sizes too big for them, big gaudy hats and red circles on their cheeks. Timo couldn’t help smiling at the photograph despite his current situation. He recognized the young girl as his mother but had no knowledge of the boy. Before he could ask any questions about him, his grandmother shoved the photo into the pouch under his shirt.  
“Take this and keep it safe for me, Mijo,” she said, brushing her hand through his hair.  
He and his grandmother took their backpacks from the wreckage and walked quickly through the desert. It was late but neither were tired after their encounter with the magical creature. After a few hours of walking and a couple of breaks, for his grandmama to drink water and rest, they could make out a large river in the distance. As if she saw something he couldn’t, she turned to him, “Follow my every command,” she fiddled with the pouch under her shirt.  
“Yes grandmama,”  
“You are going to have to be brave,” she rested her hand on his cheek.  
“I don’t understand,” he said nervously, looking all around them.  
“Find your uncle. He will keep you safe.”  
“My uncle?” He was sure she was mistaken, “you said it was just you me and mama. I don’t understand, grandmama.”  
“I don’t have time to explain everything to you,” she grew frustrated. “Take this.” She took a gold necklace off from around her neck and placed it around his.  
“Grandmama, you’re scaring me,” he confessed, feeling childlike.  
“Timo, there are too many things I haven’t been able to teach you yet. Many lessons I haven’t prepared you for. Perdoname, mijito. I am afraid you are destined to fight a war you didn’t start. But remember who you are: a Buendia. Nothing else in the world matters more than that. Do you understand, mi amor?”  
“I– grandmama– I love you,” was the only response he could muster.  
“I love you. Now, do you understand?”  
Then an explosion. Chunks of earth a few feet from them erupted and burst into the air. Two men in sharp, fitted black suits with top hats and black magical veils that scrambled the tops of their faces, appeared in front of them. They stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes locked on the grandmother and grandson. The one with the goatee had a satisfied smirk on his lips that indicated this meeting was a longtime in the making. Then they drew their wands. Timo’s eyes widened at the sight of them. He had read about the European magical inventions but anytime he asked his grandmama about them, she shut him down.  
“Who are you?” called out Timo. His grandmother tightened her grip on his wrist.  
“Hello, Timoteo. Your grandmother didn't warn you about us?” replied the man with the goatee, “It’s a pity, really. We’re here for you.”  
Before Timo could even process what he heard, his grandmother took a purple clay ball from her pouch and rolled it towards the men in black suits. The ball slowly turned into a fog that filled the area between them as it rolled and dissolved completely.  
“Your elemental magic is no match for us, curandera,” shouted the other man. “We have wands and real magic. Or do you forget? Your people never stood a chance.”  
With one swift motion of his wand, he cleared all the smoke from the field. But as he took one step toward them, he lifted his foot quickly, as if he had stepped on hot coals and recoiled. He smiled. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled loudly. Then three more figures in identical black suits appeared and the group surrounded Timo and his grandmother. One of the men looked slightly smaller than the other men, like a teenager standing next to his father. And even beneath the black veil, Timo could make out a hesitation in the young man’s posture. Timo’s grandmother reached into his pouch for him and took out a hand carved triangle with a loop on top and intricate lettering, like runes, cut along all of the triangle’s edges.  
“Hold this in front of you and do not let go of it,” she instructed.  
“We will not let you get away again,” the man with the goatee said. “Give us the boy, and we will spare your life.”  
Timo wondered what these men wanted from him and why they seemed to know of his grandmother. He had lived with his grandmother since he was five years old and never did she once mention dark wizards with wands. He noticed the younger man backing away from the front line.  
“Unlike you monsters,” said his grandmother, calculating each of the men’s movements, “I do not trade lives. Nor will I need to.”  
In one quick motion, the clay ball in his grandmother’s hand became many and as quickly as she could aim and throw them, curses and spells and jinxes flew in all directions. The men in black suits shot at Timo and he realized the wooden triangle instinctively moved his hand to ward off the incoming fire. He tried hard to remember any lesson from his grandmama that taught him of this object, but he came up with none. He and his grandmother moved in a circle, back to back, him blocking curses as she fired away.  
She fired explosions, flames and gusts of wind. Anytime, she could almost gain a rhythm, she was forced to double back to protect Timo from incoming jinxes. Because of the enchantment on the ground, the men became airborne and shot curses from the sky. In mere seconds, they became too much for Timo to defend against so on his grandmother’s order, they began to run and deflect spells from behind. His grandmother scooped up a handful of sand, mixed it with a shiny powder from her pouch and shot it into the sky to create a magical pane of kaleidoscopic glass that extended over them and absorbed all the curses that it encountered. Under its protection, his grandmother fought back more aggressively and took out two of the men, who, both, fell lifeless out of the sky.  
When the second man crashed onto the glass pane, the impact knocked the triangle from Timo’s hand and forced him out of the shield’s range. Unguarded, he took a spell to the side of his head, and crashed into the desert sand, blood spilling from his temple. His grandmother exploded towards him in a rage as the glass above exploded into tiny rainbow daggers. Shards of glass flew into the two men still airborne and uselessly impaled the two motionless men who fell from the sky, earlier. Now, protecting herself and her grandson, the men gained ground.  
When one of the two remaining men in black suits moved in close enough over a bloodied, wounded Timo to deliver a decisive curse, a defensive spell shot out from behind a nearby shrub, disorienting the man in black. Timo, desperately, kicked the man in the groin, grabbed a nearby stone about baseball size, smashed it into his skull and only recoiled when he heard bones crack. His grandmother hissed at a dead snake, near a cactus, at her feet. She animated it around the last man’s neck, and it tightened around his throat until he grew limp and planted his swollen purple face into the ground.  
A boy, seemingly close to Timo in age and stature but with a broad chest, toned arms, and skin that shone blue in the desert moonlight appeared from behind the shrub the defensive spell was cast. When the boy stood up, he wore the same black suit the other men did. He removed his veil, smiled and nodded at Timo who smiled back cautiously, confused, with blood covering his face. Timo turned to his grandmother who was looking over him with a relieved expression on her face, satisfied in her victory. And then behind her, the man with the broken skull rose from the sand, using every last ounce of his strength, and let one last curse fall from his lips, “Avada Kedavra.”  
His grandmother, instinctively, as if the bones, muscles and blood in her body were no longer hers, cast herself between Timo and the laser stream of green light. Her body contracted as she came in contact with the curse. As she looked into her grandson’s eyes for the last time, her smile faded from her face before her body collapsed onto the earth.

Trust Friend and Foe

The first time Grandmama Buendia showed any interest in Timo’s magical abilities was well after the night he shattered the windows in the living room. In fact, it wasn’t until his seventh birthday that his grandmama invited him out into the garden just as she had the day he arrived. The garden blossomed in a greenhouse and housed what seemed to be hundreds of magical plants of different varieties: miniature trees with sentient twigs and leaves, large glowing lavender bulbs that hung from thick branches overhead, and small olive colored plant-babies with weeds for hair that laid sound asleep, half buried in pots of dirt.  
His grandmama bent over a black cauldron with a live fire beneath it and a thick liquid bubbling inside. In she dropped ingredient after ingredient, never measuring, as he would notice over the years when he watched his grandmama work but feeling the cauldron; as if she were asking its permission or gauging its potency. Next to the cauldron, sat a massive block of wet clay that had just been dug up from the earth. She scooped chunk after chunk from the block and made tiny balls in between her hands. She whispered words to the balls and dropped them in. Seconds later, the balls magically levitated out of the burning goop, glowing, back to the surface for his grandmother to collect.  
“Your grandmama has been a healer for many years. Muchos años, papa,” she informed him. “I learned from my mama and she learned from hers. This is what our family does.”  
“Why do the other children say bad things about us?” He asked.  
“Because those mocosos don’t know the difference between their shoelace and their nalgas!” she huffed, her faced softened again when she looked down at him.  
Timo, even in his young age, understood it was time for him only to listen.  
“It is time for you to start learning the way of the family. You are a brujo, mijo. Like me, your mama, like your grandfather was, god rest his soul, and many others before us in our family.”  
“Grandmama, I always knew I was different from the other children in the village,” he said matter of fact. “But are you sure this is what I am? I don't feel very magical.”  
Timo never gave much thought to the strange occurrences surrounding him. Once, as a small boy, he fell over laughing at a snake made of toy blocks that chased a mean boy around on the playground after he imagined it so. No, this wasn’t when Timo felt most separate. Indeed, he felt most alone when the village children ridiculed him for his flamboyant clothing or because he always combed his hair in a swoop. The day Timo heard one of the especially nasty children say, “looks like the haunted house got a fairy,” he washed his hair out straight away and never kept up with it again.  
"You have been given a gift and it is time to nurture it,” she assured him. “There are no schools to teach you of our ways so your grandmama will do it. You must only promise me that you will listen to my instruction. That you will not take this gift for granted. It is your family legacy; what it means to be a Buendia. It is an honor to be a witch or wizard. We must use our gifts for good, to help people. Do I make myself clear?”  
“Grandmama,” Timo wondered. “Are there any other kids that are brujos like me?”  
She studied him, “nobody is exactly like you, mijo.”  
Timo attempted a spell at his grandmother’s behest. Just as she did, he dropped a clay ball into the caldron. Seconds after Timo recited his first incantation, the ball came back up with the magical glow. His grandmama, astonished, understanding the rarity of a wizard successfully attempting a spell on his first try, voiced her pride, and gave him a big kiss on the forehead. With an excited smile, he looked in through the kitchen window to his mother who’d been overlooking his lesson. His smile flattened when she returned a restrained expression, nodded at him and disappeared inside.  
Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Grandmama Buendia taught him many lessons in magic she described as native to Mexico. As those years passed, and he grew closer to his grandmama, the need for validation from his mother waned. His grandmama became his teacher, his mentor, his friend and a symbol for goodness.  
But now his grandmother was dead, and he only felt fire. The same fire he felt as a boy, when his mother fought with her in the other room. Enraged, with every ounce of malice he possessed, Timo sprinted at the bloodied, barely standing, man in black who had cast the killing curse. But he was stopped short. Before he could reach the man with his bare fists, a spell cast by a wand behind him swept the man off his feet, driving his head into the ground. Cracked open, bloody mess, brain and bone in the dirt.  
“Why did you do that?” Timo reversed his path towards the boy in black.  
“I did you a favor,” he replied. “You didn’t want to be the one. Trust me.”  
“Trust you? You’re one of them!” Timo shouted, still in a rage.  
“I am not one of them,” he put his hands up, backing away, “and I saved your life.” Timo took pause at the boy’s truthful response.  
“My grandmama…” his voice trailed off. He turned back to her body and slumped onto the ground next to her. The boy who saved his life put his hand on Timo’s shoulder and stayed with him until he was finished sobbing all the tears in his eyes.  
Timo first noticed he was very handsome and even fully clothed, he could tell the boy had a body like the boys in his village who played sports and lifted weights in their front yards. The same boys Timo spent much of his childhood lionizing from afar but never joining, though he did not yet understand why. Timo saw the same fear in his eyes that he sensed in him during battle. The boy, who was visibly taller and stronger than Timo was, could have killed Timo right then and there, unopposed, if he desired.  
Timo began digging into the ground with his hands until the boy stopped him. He produced a magical spade from the top of his wand which he used to dig instead. Timo, for the time being, did not pose any questions and the boy offered no answers. Instead, they dug his grandmother a grave and together lowered her into the ground. Timo took the magical pouch from his grandmama and selected items from her backpack to take into his. When they finished burying her, they washed off with water from the boy’s wand and he made a small magical marking on the grave so that all magical creatures and people who passed would know his grandmother laid there to rest.  
“Look at me,” said the boy. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.”  
The boy waved his wand over Timo’s forehead and whispered a phrase over and over. Timo began to feel the deep wound on his head being to close and heal.  
“Thank you,” said Timo, swinging his backpack over his shoulder as he began to walk. “So, you’re not one of those men. But why are you with them?”  
“When they came for my family, I was kidnapped. They offered to train me to be like them, maybe because I’m athletic or something. When I refused, they tortured me,” he explained. “Eventually, I agreed to their training until I could plan my escape.”  
“I’m sorry to sound cynical,” Timo refuted. “But you expect me to believe that you just happened to escape the night you met me?”  
“I’ve seen these men kill many people,” the boy said. “None of them ever stood a chance. You and your grandmother, I knew you would win. You helped me escape.”  
Timo couldn’t begin to think of his grandmama again- how she took the place of his mother. How, instead of ever considering his mother’s neglect, his grandmama offered him unconditional love in its place. He couldn’t explain it because he didn’t fully understand it himself nor could he begin to unravel the thoughts in his head without tears and rage and more fire. So, instead, he quelled it with a question.  
“Why did you help me?” he asked. “You could have just ran and left me.”  
“You needed help. And helping you helped me,” he said stiffly. “And I’ve buried my parent, too.”  
“Do you know where you’re going?” asked Timo, sympathetically.  
“I’m exactly where I need to be,” said the boy. Timo looked confused.  
“We need to get moving,” the boy warned. “If I’ve learned anything about those men, they will send more to finish the job.”  
“You mean, you want to come WITH me?” Timo asked, incredulously.  
“I’m on the same journey as you,” said the boy. “Maybe we don’t have to do it alone.”  
Timo looked into his face, quizzically. The boy had big brown eyes that reflected the night sky and Timo found himself surveying every one of the boy’s features; his high cheeks and smooth skin, his sharp jaw and plump lips. He had the body of an athlete; big, lean, defined. His grandmama had pinched his own cheeks many times in his adolescence and gushed about her handsome nieto, but Timo couldn’t help brushing his hair into place when looking at him. He might’ve been watching a second too long. As soon as the boy noticed, Timo broke his stare.  
“I’ve never met anyone else like me,” confessed Timo. The boy blushed.  
“I mean,” Timo stammered. “You use a wand. I use these balls. Magic.”  
“You can use it if you’d like,” said the boy, offering his wand, pale faced.  
“Those men said they were after me,” said Timo, “This could be a trap. I don’t even know if I should trust you.”  
“My name is Astor. I’m 15 years old,” replied the boy, earnestly. “And I know they don't take kindly to traitors. Now they will be after me too… and I don't have anybody else.”  
Timo hesitated. The boy’s actions conflicted with the idea of him Timo created in his head. Even though they were the same age, the boy was much bigger than he was. Timo looked down at the boy’s wand, mesmerized, and the boy noticed.  
“Take it, then,” offered the boy. “If you don’t trust me, take my wand. I’m powerless without it.”  
“Why would I take your wand when I could take any one of theirs?” Timo gestured to the dead men.  
“You don’t want to do that,” explained the boy. “After a wand’s owner dies, the wand becomes useless. My dad told me, in some cases of a dead wizard’s wand being used, the wand has fatally backfired.” Timo looked unconvinced.  
“Fine, then try it but if I have to bury you too, you’re going to regret it,” the boy tried joking. His words stung, reminding Timo of what had just happened to his grandmother and the boy’s face instantly flattened with regret.  
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just, do you even know where you’re going? Do you know how to get to any sort of magical community in America?”  
Timo hadn’t thought about what he’d do now. The thought of being out in the desert alone, a new country alone, terrified him. Whether he decided to continue with Astor or not, he knew the decision could be deadly. Astor put his wand in Timo’s hand.  
He had known many boys like Astor in his village, boys in school who teased Timo daily. But he thought, maybe because of their kismet meeting, and because every time he looked at him, something in the pit of his stomach fluttered, it would be okay to decide against his better judgment.  
“Okay then, do you know where we’re going?” asked Timo, relenting, walking away from his grandmother’s grave.  
“Nope,” answered Astor, cheekily, following behind. “But at least we’ll be lost together.”  
After walking a few miles in silence, a galaxy of emotions swirling in Timo’s stomach, they were both simultaneously jerked and then pulled by a phantom wind. They both stopped in their tracks, defenses ready. Astor instructed Timo to give his wand a flick and a light appeared on the tip of it. When nothing else happened around them, they exhaled heavily, relieved. “What was that?” Asked Timo.  
“I think we are on American land now,” Astor gestured to a body of water behind them: The Rio Grande.  
A few seconds later, Astor noticed another light in the distance, moving closer to them, growing bigger and bigger. Timo readied his pouch and Astor’s wand while Astor moved behind Timo. When the light heading towards them came into focus, it revealed itself to be a large black autobus that came to a halt in front of them. On the window read THE KNIGHT BUS.  
“We are definitely on American land,” said Astor, putting his hand over the light on the wand.  
A man in a paperboy hat stuck his head out of the window,  
“Welcome to ‘mergency transport fir stranded witches an’ wizards.” The conductor looked over the pair curiously. He looked only a few years older than Timo and Astor with thick blonde hair, big cheeks, and two big teeth that stuck out of his lips.  
“So, which one a yuh called?” He asked them, the boys stared blankly back at him. “Y’know, which one a ya stuck out yr wand?”  
“We both did,” improvised Astor.  
“‘lright then,” he replied, “’t’s 20 dragots each fir the nearest train station, San Esperanza.”  
“20 dragots!” repeated Timo in disbelief. Back home, 20 dragots could buy magical supplies for his grandmama’s medicines for a month.  
From the humid stillness in the Texan desert, a chilling air swept over them. They simultaneously whipped their heads around. One hundred yards back, two more veiled men in black suits appeared from a black space in midair.  
“Hey!” yelled one of the men as they ran towards the boys, wands drawn, “Stop them!”  
“20 dragots each then,” Astor shoved money into the driver’s hand. “What are we waiting for?”  
“Er’ you two in some kinda trouble?” asked the conductor.  
“I’ll give you 30 for each of us if you don’t ask any questions and get us out of here now!” Astor pushed.  
At his request, the van’s sliding door flew open and they both jumped inside. Just as the men neared the van, Timo felt space and time bend around him, and the world turned to black for a second as he heard a faint pop. When he opened his eyes, the van swerved onto an open highway, blazing full speed ahead.  
“What was that?” Timo asked, giddiness and queasiness competing for space in his stomach.  
“We jus’ disapperated,” the conductor answered him with a prideful smirk on his face.  
The inside of the van stretched back longer than it should have and was tall enough for them to stand comfortably. A couple of plush couches lined the edges of the van and a set of capsule bunk beds sat in the back. This was surely not the same autobus he had walked into, Timo thought. And as if he could read his mind, “It’s a simple extension charm,” Astor explained. “Same kind on your pouch, I’d assume.”  
“Right,” Timo replied, trying to keep up, “I don’t have any money.”  
“I do,” replied Astor, showing off a mountain of bills in his pocket.  
“I don’t want your money,” Timo said, searching his brain for some other way he could pay for the trip instead.  
“We don’t have much of a choice, right now, do we.” Astor replied, with a reassuring smile.  
He was right. Timo plopped down on one of the couches and sunk into the fluff of the cushions. The fleeting moment of comfort, knowing he was safe, allowed him to think on his grandmother. As he let his memories of her penetrate his present, he started to weep. Feeling far too embarrassed to cry in front of his new travel mate, he awkwardly wiped his face every time a new tear materialized. For his part, Astor did a good job pretending not to notice.  
Instead of crying, he took an inventory of his current predicament: In one night, Timo had met more Brujos than he had in his entire life. His grandmother was dead. His mother was gone. He was in a strange new country he knew very little about. There were powerful, very well dressed, wizards after him. The dangerous, handsome boy, he travelled with could turn on him at any moment and he had no idea how to find the uncle in the old photo his grandmother left for him; an uncle he just learned existed. He took the photo from his pouch and studied it.  
“Who are the cute kids?” asked Astor.  
“This is an old photo of the only family I have here in the States,” he replied.  
“Fancy aren’t they. How are we going to find them?” asked Astor sitting down next to him.  
“Listen,” began Timo, his heart raced as Astor sat next to him. “I am very appreciative of all your help so far, but I don’t know you. And if I’m being honest, you scare me.”  
“I scare you? I saved your life, didn’t I. Doesn’t that count for something? All the movies I’ve seen, you’d be in love with me by now!” Astor joked. Timo felt his stomach flutter again.  
“I didn’t ask you to and I don’t owe you anything.”  
“Look, I am not your enemy. I came to this country the same way you did. But after I was kidnapped, I was left with home. No friends, no family. Nowhere to go, nothing.” Tears formed in Astor’s eyes and Timo felt immediate regret.  
“I immigrated here alone, from Brazil, further than you, see. I had a life there. I was in my fourth year at Castelobruxo, you know, with friends, a girlfriend, a family. Nice life, really. But that all changed when my mom got sick. Not long after she passed, my dad sort of lost it and I was forced to come to America on my own.”  
“Y–You had a girlfriend?” stuttered Timo, trying not to sound too interested.  
“What?” replied Astor, with a confused look on his face.  
“I’m sorry about your parents,” said Timo. “What is Castelobruxo?” He changed his question.  
“It’s a school for witches and wizards, you know. We say Brujos on our side of the border.”  
“My grandmother told me there wasn’t any schools for someone like me,” Timo said meekly, more questions he added to the pile already mounting in his brain.  
Timo studied his face, looking for the answers in Astor’s big eyes. They were the eyes of a child, still innocent, unwavering. Timo wanted, badly, to trust him; having a companion in a foreign country couldn’t possibly be the worst thing. The thought of doing it alone terrified him. But when he looked into the strange boy’s face, that terror melted. He was pulled into a curious comfort by his stare he couldn’t help conceding to.  
“You have my wand and I can teach you how to use it,” Astor said bracingly. Timo smiled.  
“‘ers a pot an’ shower n’ the back if yah need it,” called out the conductor, “we’ve got a few hours lef’ ta go.”  
“Let’s get cleaned up and then we’ll talk,” said Timo, exhaustion in his voice.  
He let the water in the small shower run from the tip of his head down to his toes. Dirt, blood, tears and filth pooled at his feet. It wasn’t the death of his grandmother that ached in his side when he closed his eyes or the anxiety of being in a new country that had his attention. It wasn’t even the thought of the task he had set out to do, on his own when he arrived in the US- it was Astor. It was his eyes, his strong body, his styled haircut. He didn’t understand what caused the strange boy to take up so much space in his head, for what reason he lingered on every word that he spoke. Even if he could think it through completely, which seemed impossible given the events of the last few hours alone, Timo allowed intrigue to outweigh risk as he decided to keep Astor close.  
As the boys cleaned up, Timo noticed many small scars on Astor’s broad back.  
“What are you looking at?” he asked, smiling, as he caught Timo’s eyes.  
“You exercise a lot, don’t you.” Timo said rather than asked.  
“I’m lead chaser… on the school quidditch team,” answered Astor, realizing Timo’s blank face was hearing words foreign to him. “It’s a magical sport you play on brooms. Huge in some parts of the world. You fly. It’s a good position.”  
“I’m no good at sports,” confessed Timo, a pang of embarrassment shone red on his cheeks.  
“I saw you out there fighting, the type of magic you use. Everybody’s good at something,” replied Astor, in a voice that sounded so sure, Timo knew he meant it.  
“Astor, who are those men and why are they after me?” Timo asked, not completely sure he wanted to know the answer.  
“It was my first mission, wasn’t it? They’re called scourers. They’re mercenaries, paid thugs, with wands. Could have been anybody who wanted you dead. I think you could answer your question better than I could.” Timo nodded, strangely relieved.  
“I’m wiped,” he exhaled, “I’m going to sleep for a couple hours.”  
“Sure,” replied Astor. “Top or bottom bunk?”  
“I think the couch is fine,” said Timo, through a yawn. As soon as he put his head on the cushion, he drifted off.  
A tree atop a narrow hill. Timo stands underneath it. There is a castle in the distance. The moon is high in the sky, partially covered in clouds. He drifts closer and closer to the tree, but his feet don’t move. A pair of monstrous, angry red eyes open inside of the tree as he approaches. Timo tries to resist the forward pull into the tree, but he can’t plant his feet. The tree bends towards him and hisses, “ssss… ssss… sssalazar. sss… ssslytherin.” Timo tries every magical incantation he knows as he scoops chunks of the earth. Nothing works. The tree curves its huge trunk and morphs into a snake twenty feet tall. “sss… sss… ssslytherin.” Timo is face to face with the snake tree. It opens its huge mouth, ready to devour him and inside he sees his grandmama, mother, a child and a man. And then he wakes.  
Timo shot up on the couch out of his sleep, covered in sweat, panting. When the world came into focus, he was still on the Knight Bus. He searched frantically for Astor and found him on the ground, sleeping under a blanket, next to the couch he laid on.  
“Bad dream?” asked the driver, looking in the rear view. “Got ‘bout an hour left.”  
Still groggy with sleep, he put his head back down on the pillow and looked over the edge at Astor sleeping as he drifted off again. He awoke again to the driver’s voice who called out their destination. His arm hung over the edge of the couch and his index finger was caught in Astor’s grip. They woke up together and quickly unlocked fingers, shaking the sleep off.  
“Sleep good?” asked the driver, deviously. “San Esperanza's station. You can grab a train ‘ere er’ take the entr’nce at thee other end here to the Chop Hinge Mall.”  
They both looked at him, with puzzled, sleepy looks.  
“Chop Hinge Mall?” he repeated, “’t’s only one a the biggest magical shoppin’ plazas n’ the country. ‘Ere, take a map. n’ remember, you ever need r’ services again, you know what ta do.”  
They took the map from the driver and thanked him for his hospitality. Outside, the morning dawned bright and cold as they made their way through the train station, swiftly, with the help of the map. Astor suggested they avoid eye contact with anybody they crossed. In his village, his grandmama referred to the villagers with no knowledge of their abilities as “Mundanos,” but Astor called them “No-Majs.”  
At the most northeast end of the station, they came upon a wall with a wooden spacing carved out in the middle of it. Astor, with Timo’s permission, tapped his wand on the wall as instructed on the map and Timo began to wonder how wizards without wands like him, who couldn’t access the Knight Bus or tap on enchanted walls got around. After a few seconds, the wall began to rearrange its wooden makeup into a large doorway that led into a great and beautiful shopping center. Timo’s jaw dropped in disbelief, there was nothing to compare it to back home. When he looked over at Astor, he seemed to be just as delighted. As they walked through into the Mall, the doorway closed behind them.  
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Timo asked his new friend.  
“We have magical shops back home but nothing like this,” replied Astor. “My father once told me, though, that America was top notch in magical commerce.”  
They walked through the bustle of dozens of witches and wizards going about their business; some in flamboyant robes that reached the ground and some in plainclothes like the no-majs in the train station. The mall had an enchanted sky on the ceiling that was bright blue and covered in clouds. The principal hallway stretched at least two city blocks with stores and cafes lining the entire way. In the middle of the main entrance, stood a huge statue of a guillotine. The white stone statue stood on top of smaller statues of people who were holding the structure up on their shoulders. The plaque read “Rappaports Law. 1790.” Timo guessed the symbol stood for some American magical history he was unlearned in.  
“Let’s stop for breakfast, should we?” asked Astor, eyes big with wonder.  
“Sure,” replied Timo counting coins in the palm of his hand.  
“On me,” said Astor, pretending not to notice.  
Timo hid his hand away. He wanted to object, but the sound of his stomach rumbling won out his pride. He kept walking, forcing a smile in Astor’s direction. They walked through the mall, glancing into the stylish boutiques: Kneedander’s Wizarding Robes, Twelvetree’s Trinkets and Souvenirs, Chop Hinge Closet & Brooms, OWLs OWLs OWLs Magical Creatures and Picquery’s Wand Shop. Timo walked to the wand shop in a trance. Through the window, he saw the mountains of wands neatly stacked from floor to ceiling. The walls were made of white marble with beautiful ornate white columns and a big white desk with the shop owner behind it. He looked around for shoppers but found none inside.  
“Gets busier at the beginning of the school year, I bet.” said Astor as he walked up behind him. “We can go inside if you want.”  
“Nah, it’s okay,” replied Timo, walking away with his head down. He knew there was no way he could afford anything inside, anyway.  
“I could get you one,” offered Astor. “It’d be safer if the both of us had wands,” he reasoned.  
“I don’t want your money,” said Timo sternly. “Besides, I don’t know how to use one anyway.”  
As Astor looked ready to offer an apology, Timo spotted a coffee shop. Inside, Astor ordered two coffees and breakfast pastries to a table near the back of the shop, before Timo could object. They talked about their new surroundings over breakfast and Timo looked at the photo again. He spoke about his grandmother’s instruction to find his uncle before she was killed, even though he never knew he had one. They speculated about where Timo’s mystery uncle could be but came up empty at every theoretical turn. Timo picked up the photo to examine it closely. He inspected the photo of his baby uncle and mother in what he guessed was his grandmamas clothes and makeup and matching necklaces. They looked happy.  
“Hey!” called out Astor, “There's something on the back.”  
Timo turned the photo over: Me encontraras, siempre, bajo la misma luna.  
“What’s it mean?” asked Astor, mouth full of pastry.  
“It says, ‘you can always find me under the same moon,’” he translated.  
“Bunch of nonsense to me,” Astor said plainly. “Does it mean something to you?”  
“No, but my grandmother also left me this,” answered Timo.  
He took the necklace his grandmother gave him in the desert, out of the pouch under his shirt and showed it to Astor. Hanging on the gold chain, was a pendant of a crescent moon inside of a gold circle with four stones evenly spaced out on the circle, starting on the top of the moon. The quality of the old photo was as best as it could be, but Timo still had to strain his eyes to make it out clearly.  
“Do you think it’s the one they’re both wearing?” he asked.  
“Try wearing it like they are, maybe.” suggested Astor.  
He threw the gold chain over his head and rested the pendant on his chest. They looked at it and then each other, waiting for something to happen. He looked at the photo again and recited the words on the back. He looked at Astor, whose eyes were locked on the necklace and then looked down at it. Two of the stones on the circle of the necklace began to glow. The stone to the north of the moon and the one on the east. 

Revelations in Gran Monte

“She knew,” said Timo, to nobody specifically. His thoughts were elsewhere: They wondered through miles of land and weeks of time and into his grandmother, now buried in the earth. She had given him the necklace for a reason. Why? Did she know their trip would cost her life? Why were scourers after him? Why didn’t she tell him any of this? The questions fanned the flame in his gut, the flame he could not indulge. Not now. Maybe not ever. Not if he was going to focus on the task at hand, which was, for now, to get to his uncle.  
When they studied the necklace harder, Astor noticed a flashing golden word written in cursive between the two glowing stones: Gran Monte. The name flashed in Timo’s brain and a faint memory swirled around it. He examined the map from the Knight Bus and found a town north of them with the same name. The town was described as a “small farming town, inaccessible to no-majs, just 15 miles North East of the Chop Hinge Mall in San Esperanza,” in the map’s directory.  
They gulped down their coffee and left the cafe immediately. The clouds in the enchanted sky appeared more sparsely and Timo spotted a large bird with huge wings up above, flying in the direction they were walking. They walked through one of the mall’s secondary corridors, towards an exit, where they came upon a large nook with dozens of capsule beds, like the ones on the Knight Bus, stacked at least three stories high on either side. At the end of the nook was a public lavatory with private baths. Outside of the nook stood an attendant girl, smiling ear to ear, with a Burgundy suit and hat lined in gold embroidery.  
“Looks like you got the thunderbird, today,” said the red headed attendant. “Lucky you!”  
“We haven’t got any bird with us,” said Astor looking around. The girl pointed up at the bird with huge wings, who was circling above them now.  
“What is it?” asked Timo, watching the bird overhead in awe.  
“The thunderbird is a magical bird native to America, dear. He appears above sometimes, and shoppers believe he brings luck to those that he follows. Looks like it’s you two today.”  
“Does he have a name?” Asked Timo, eyes still in the sky.  
“Not officially. But thunderbirds are known to have a great sense of adventure,” she said enthusiastically.  
“Say,” began Astor. “Isn’t the thunderbird one of the four symbols for the houses at the American Wizarding school?”  
“That’s right!” The girl’s voice rose an octave, “I’m a thunderbird. Fourth year. I summer job it here. I don’t recognize you two from Ilvernormy, though. Are you visiting from somewhere?”  
Timo and Astor exchanged worried looks.  
“Yeah, we’re from HOG-WARTS. In BRI-TAIN.” Astor said loudly, in an affected voice, badly mimicking a British accent.  
“Welcome,” she said, tenuously with a strange look. “Your accents don’t sound British.”  
“What is this place?” Timo asked her, redirecting her attention back to their surroundings.  
“Well, this is the Chop Hinge community lodging, dear,” replied the attendant. “It was constructed in 1965 after the repeal of Rappaports Law in conjunction and as a part of a peace treaty with the vibrant Native magical tribes. We offer complementary capsule lodging and public baths for traveling wizards. Of course, if you’d like more private accommodations, there are two hotels in the plaza.”  
“Um,” Timo tried not to sound too dense, “peace treaty?”  
“Well, dear,” the attendant cleared her throat to speak from memory. “For most wizards, Rappaports law prohibited contact with any no-maj, but for the native tribes’ wizards, whose lands and many daily businesses depended on interaction with no-majs, this law was the source of irreparable harm in their relationship with MACUSA.”  
“And the tribes,” Timo asked. “They were happy with this peace treaty?”  
“Oh, dear,” the attendant chuckled, “I don’t involve myself in those kinds of affairs. But do feel free to use any of the available pods and lavatory. See me for a key card.”  
Timo thanked her for the history lesson and he and Astor moved on.  
“My dad always told me the indigenous people got left out,” said Astor. “He said over the years, they were forgotten by MACUSA, the American magical government, even got their land stolen from them. Wouldn’t be surprised if this mall was built on native land. Some even stopped sending their children to Ilvermorny. Taught them at their reservations instead.”  
Timo remembered the statue in the entrance of the mall, and it took on a new life in his brain. Why would the American wizards memorialize something that brought pain to a group of people who were supposed to be their allies?  
They exited the mall and Timo turned his attention back to the map and his mother’s necklace. As they began their journey, Timo felt a wave of unease, as if someone was watching. He scanned the area for any black suits, like the men in the desert wore, but he found nothing. Astor assured him they were safe, and he put it out of his head altogether.  
“The only threat you’re not safe from is the tickle beast!” shouted Astor, playfully, as he wiggled his fingers up and down Timo’s sides. He begged Astor to stop through involuntary laughter, half embarrassed. When he did, Astor belly laughed at Timo’s weak annoyance. Finally relenting, Timo allowed himself a real laugh, as well, and the boys continued walking.  
The roads they traveled on were noted on the map as inaccessible to no-majs through magical enchantments on native lands surrendered, as part of the native peace treaty of which Timo had just learned. The cobblestone street extended out of eyesight and was divided in half by tracks for small passenger trollies that passed them every few minutes. Open American land surrounded them except for when they reached a trolley stop around which towns were built. Witches and wizards waited for the trolley or walked in their neighborhoods and walked their magical pets in the fields that surrounded their towns. Once more, Astor offered to pay for a ride and, once more, Timo declined. And so, they continued walking.  
As they passed the trolley village, called Tepozito on the map, Timo felt it resurface- the feeling of being followed. He looked at each villager that passed him. His eyes inspected every face he could find. Astor, sensing the change in Timo’s mood, clenched his fists, ready for something to happen. After a few seconds nothing did, and they kept walking. To keep his mind off of it, Astor asked questions about Timo’s family. Questions he knew Timo could not answer but kept his mind busy, nonetheless. They speculated about what Timo’s uncle would be like and what Timo would say. Astor did his best impression of a theoretical uncle Buendia that drew a smile from Timo’s lips. It was the first time he felt joy in weeks; the excitement of meeting his uncle, Astor’s playful nature, the beautiful road and towns they passed. Upon the next trolley village, Timo stopped walking and surveyed the houses that extended down small streets breaking off of the long path.  
“I think I could live here,” said Timo. “Maybe one day when everything isn’t so…”  
“I think I could too,” said Astor, looking back over the small town.  
In his feeling of joy, and in vein of Astor’s gaiety, Timo remembered his mother. Before age 5, before they moved into his grandmother’s house and before their father left them, Timo’s mother was a constant source for laughter. He remembered his mother’s smile and always happy demeanor. She had striking eyes and round cheeks that were always blush. He thought she was the most beautiful person alive. Of course, after the death of her oldest child and divorce from her husband, she was never the same mother and over the years at his grandmother’s house, Timo began to forget her laughter and her smile and her beauty. But witnessing Astor’s laughter, smile and beauty reminded Timo of his mother’s love, fleeting as it was.  
The next town would be Gran Monte and Timo allowed himself just a couple minutes of peace and hope with Astor, who was trying to tell a joke about penguins, by his side before the overwhelming unfamiliarity of the next steps in his journey.  
Gran Monte was the last stop on the trolley’s tracks and the houses there were more spread out on the streets that fanned out from the main road like veins off of a beating heart. As the boys surveyed the map for any clue about their next move, Timo felt a hum near his chest. When he looked down on the necklace, only one stone glowed now, the west stone. Above it, another word, this time corresponding to a street on the map. They followed the compass necklace west and then north down another road and finally west again past the town limits to an open crop field where finally the stones on the necklace stopped glowing.  
Timo first felt the stiffness in his legs and then his fingers. That’s when he called Astor’s name, who was already frozen completely. His entire body grew rigid and then, then he heard silence. The only movement in his body was his heart thumping in his chest. From behind them circled a hooded figure, wand drawn with bright robes down to the ground. He was sure this hooded person had been following them all along. The hooded figure removed the dark covering to reveal a face that looked eerily like his mother’s.  
Timo’s eyes grew twice their size and his breathing became a panic. Astor used every muscle under his skin to fight the curse in an effort to protect Timo, but no amount of physical strength could break it. The witch put her hand on the necklace and ripped it off of Timo’s chest.  
“Where did you get this?” She shrieked. She waved her wand over Timo’s face to free his lips and head.  
“Let us go!” he shouted. She pointed her wand at him.  
“Tell me where you found this necklace or I will strike you down,” she warned him.  
“I didn’t find it,” Timo refuted. “It was my mother’s.”  
“Your mother’s?” The witch repeated back, unconvinced. Timo looked back at Astor now sweating under the curse and immediately knew what to say.  
“Bajo la misma luna,” Timo recited from the back of the photograph.  
The witch exhaled on her step backwards. She waved her wand again and the boys fell on all fours, free of the binding curse. Astor joined Timo at his side, and they surveyed the witch apprehensively.  
“I apologize for using my magic against you,” she said. “I had to be sure. Are you… Timo?”  
“Yes,” he replied, uneasy. “Who are you? You look exactly like my¬–”  
The witch looked over the pair before walking away, interrupting Timo as he spoke, expecting them to follow.  
“If you’re looking for your mother’s brother,” she said, walking faster, “you’ll never find him.”“And why is that?” Astor asked before Timo could, the pair following closely behind the witch.  
“Because he doesn’t exist,” she replied.  
They followed her around a hill and there, nestled in the base of it, was a small stone cottage she invited them into. It was a cozy place with a fenced yard and a tree growing small red fruits Timo couldn’t identify. As the sun was setting in the sky and beyond the fence, Timo noticed dozens of animals grazing in the grass; a long beaked bird with horse legs, a couple of dogs with forked tails, a huge four legged beast with thick brown fur and a horn on its head and a majestic large cat like animal with striking green eyes.  
From around the corner, emerged a small gray goblin like creature. She had big eyes and ears that pointed out on the side of her head. The ugly beast walked on two legs, and if Timo didn’t know any better, he would have thought a small child had been in a horrible accident. The small creature wore a miserable expression on her face as she opened a gate to the pen adjacent to the cottage for the creatures to feed. She eyed the boys, distastefully, as they walked by, and mumbled insults at them under her breath.  
“Don't mind Sally,” said the witch. “Come in, and shut the door behind us, Sally!”  
“Do you think we should go inside?” asked Astor, in a whisper, with a worried face.  
“Definitely,” Timo said, in awe of the animals he had never seen before, images of their origins and their magnificence flashing in his mind.  
He was returned to present by a slamming against his rear heel as he maundered through the doorway in his thoughts. “Ow!” cried Timo. “What was that for?”  
The small creature had purposefully slammed the door against his leg.  
“Oh, you stupid pukwudgie!” the witch shouted at it. “Off with you!”  
The creature waddled away, seeming satisfied, mumbling expletives under her breath.  
“Lovely, isn’t she?” joked Astor.  
“You’ve never met a pukwudgie until you met Sally,” replied the witch. “She’ll warm up to you in time. Unless she doesn't.”  
“Timo,” whispered Astor, “Do you think she’d take kindly to me having been a scourer? Maybe we should keep that on a need to know.”  
Timo hadn’t given the detail much thought. How would Timo tell his uncle, once they found him, who Astor was. He wasn’t sure, yet, he knew. His friend? An ex-scourer? His crush? He knew the danger in keeping secrets. Still, he nodded in agreement, the precariousness of his decision went down like a knot in his throat.  
Inside, the witch brewed a pot of tea on a wood burning stove. She served it to them in small clay cups on a coffee table in the main room.  
“Oh, tea,” said Astor. “Thank you but I’m not sure we’ll be staying very long.”  
“I think Timo has a few questions he would like to ask me,” she said, as if expecting what was to come next.  
There were a million questions Timo thought of before the one that first came out of his mouth; questions, the culmination of his journey up to this point. But he could not look away from her face– the face that looked so much like his mother’s.  
“I’m sorry to stare,” apologized Timo. “Why do you look so much like my mother?”  
“Because we’re sisters,” replied the witch.  
“I’m sorry,” Timo apologized again and retrieved the photo of his mother and her brother from his bag. “I am looking for my uncle. I believe he’s the boy in this photo.”  
The witch took the photo from his hands and smiled through tears in her eyes.  
“I haven’t seen this photo of me in decades,” she said. “Yes. This is a photo of your mother and me when we were children.”  
Timo and Astor exchanged confused looks. “I don’t understand,” explained Timo.  
“Tell me, Timoteo,” said the witch. “You grew up in the same house I did. In the same village I grew up in where the children throw rocks through the windows and call us brujos. On the same land I ran away from. Have you ever felt so different, so exceptionally separate, it hurts? Did you ever pray to whatever you could think of to be free or your own body, mind or land? Surely, you didn't think you’d live in the village under my mother’s house your entire life. I saw it in your eyes, the moment I knew who you were.  
“You see, I, once, felt a calling, too. Not the same one that you felt but I did feel like an other, too: like the body I was given couldn’t possibly be mine, like the person I was told I needed to be wasn’t the person I wanted to be. You see, the child in this photograph was who I was born as. The woman you see before you today is who I was born to be.”  
“I understand,” said Timo, and he meant it. “But why did you run away?”  
“Your grandmama wasn’t as understanding as you are,” replied the witch. “I was only a little older than you were when she found me in a dress and blush on my cheeks and she told me the child she bore was dead. Your mother, although she never acknowledged my truth, tried everything to stop me from leaving but your grandmama never looked at me in the face again. When I left, your mama gave me a necklace like this one in the picture and called me by name: Rosalia. Your mama continued sending me letters telling me my mother cried for me for weeks. That she hardened herself and grew old in my absence. But if I hadn’t sought my own path, I would have never become who I was meant to be; even though it came at a great cost. I had to do things I am not proud of to make it in this land, in this country, alone. But I am proud, now, of who I am: if I wasn’t what I am, two spirit, if I wasn’t a witch, I would be dead.”  
Timo couldn’t think of the right thing to say. He never knew his grandmother to be cruel or his mother so caring. Her past weighed on him and colored all of the ideas he had of his mother and grandmama.  
“I’d like to… know you as myself,” said Timo, mustering up all of the courage he could find inside himself. As if Astor knew was coming, he put his hand on Timo’s. “Not to say I’m like you, I mean, I know who I was born as is who I am meant to be. But what makes me happy, the families and lives other children my age want to have– who I find– I don't think– I– boys– who I want– I–”  
“I already know,” said his aunt. “And you are perfect to me, just the way you are.”  
“So are you,” replied Timo, streams of tears now running down his cheeks.  
His aunt held his empty hand and they all cried as Timo told her about how his grandmother died and how Astor helped bury her. This time Timo’s tears were not in vain. He didn’t only shed them to suffer– he shared them with his family, his aunt Rosalia, two-spirit, sorceress, kind woman. He found solace in knowing she was his family. He sought an uncle he had never met and instead found her, his aunt Rosalia, exactly who he needed.  
She offered them her home and they cleaned the day off their bodies as his aunt waved her wand, rearranging the curtains and living room furniture to give them some privacy. Timo took the convertible and Astor spread out a blanket on the floor.  
“Hey Timo,” said Astor, from under the couch, the usual confidence in his voice, broken.  
“You know, my mom was my best friend as a kid. I was never even embarrassed about it. She just loved me so much. As long as I was happy, she was too. But then she got sick and after a long time, she passed away. After she died, my dad got tough, kind of like your grandmama with your aunt. It was really hard to be his son. If my mom taught me to be happy, my dad taught me to be wanting. I just wanted him to smile at me the way my mom used to, but I found myself living for him. That’s why I joined the quidditch team at school and got top grades. That’s why I had… a girlfriend.”  
“Why are you telling me this?” said Timo looking over the edge of the couch.  
“I just want you to know that you’re not alone.”  
Timo found Astor’s eyes under the couch in the darkness. They were full of tears and it was strange for him –Timo– to see someone like Astor, so confident and strong, be this vulnerable. “You know, there’s enough space on the convertible,” Timo told him. “You shouldn’t have to sleep on the floor.”  
He saw Astor’s body move through the dark like a shadow and climb into the couch bed. Having Astor this close and unguarded made Timo’s stomach somersault.  
“You know, I’d like you to know me for me, too,” whispered Astor, as if he were trusting Timo with a secret.  
“Know you? What do you mean?” Asked Timo, whose heart beat in his throat.  
“What makes me happy; the family I choose and who I want,” said Astor reaching his hand out in the dark. Timo extended his hand and met Astor’s, hidden in the nights forgiving shadow. They locked fingers and fell asleep.  
They woke the next day to sounds of clinking pots and pans. Aunt Rosalia shushed Sally as she hurried around the kitchen, still in her long nightrobes and frizzy morning hair, preparing a huge breakfast: a variety of crepes and sausages, mountains of deviled eggs and fresh biscuits, bowls of sliced fruit. She wished them a good morning as they stood in awe over all of the food.  
“Is all this for us?” Timo asked as his stomach growled at the delicious sight.  
She smiled at them as she forced a cup of coffee into their hands. Sally huffed at them when she walked by. After breakfast, they sat at the table and listened to Rosalia’s stories about the magical creatures in her yard who showed up one by one after she took in Sally, the pukwudgie, starting with a stray pack of crups. She was certain the little doglike animals, ferociously intelligent, communicated her love of magical beasts to any they encountered on their outdoor adventures.  
He watched the animals wander about the field through a window in the cottage and considered his aunt’s life: he could live this way forever, maybe, if Astor wanted what he wanted, if he could get to know his aunt better, if he could forget the reason he decided to come to America in the first place. But he had come to this land for a reason and it seemed right to him to tell his aunt and Astor about the last conversation he had with his grandmother in Mexico.  
In the middle of what would be one of his final lessons with his grandmama, in the garden where most of their lessons were conducted, his mother, unusually, made an appearance. His grandmother went over a book of defensive spells he had already learned from her before and eventually her talking became background noise as Timo watched his mother dance around them nervously and ask them questions about their lesson. Much to Timo’s surprise, she seemed to understand the intricate details about the magic that went into their lesson.  
“Timo, your grandma and I have something to tell you,” she told him, her eyes avoiding his, walking through the greenhouse. “We are going on a trip soon.”  
He looked up to his grandmother’s reaction but found her face unphased.  
“A trip, where?” He asked, confused. His mother didn’t take trips, and if she ever did, it certainly would not be with him.  
“There was a mix up,” she said, “with grandmama and some of the villagers' medicines. They’re angry with us and, now, we have to leave.”  
She was, thought Timo, surely mistaken. There were many things that confused Timo about the other villagers in town and his relationship to them, many things that confused him about his mother and his relationship to her, but one thing Timo could always trust in was in his grandmama and her knowledge about healing.  
“I thought it best,” she continued, “if we have to leave home, we should take this opportunity to cross to Los Estados, as a family. So, I’ve made the arrangements and we leave in three weeks.”  
“Don’t I get a say in this?” He asked them both but neither answered.  
He looked again at his grandmama, skeptically, whose eyes would not meet his. His mother was lying, he was sure of it. He became angry with them both: that they would decide a move this consequential without him, that his grandmama would allow his mother to lie, that they gave him no choice. He never intended to stay in their small village, but surely, he wasn’t ready. He had always imagined he’d leave when he was much older and knew more about magic and the world outside of the village they lived in.  
He grabbed his notebook off of a shelf and opened it to show his grandmother. In it, was a torn-out photo of a small castle and another photo of a wand whose base was carved into a spiral with a crown tip.  
“Where on earth did you get those?” She asked, with venom on her tongue.  
“In your personal notes” he replied, unapologetically. “I was snooping and happened on these. If we cross to the States, I want a wand. To protect us.”  
“WANDS! WANDS?” She was yelling now. “I’ve told you a thousand times, those euro death sticks are only made for one thing: to kill. You think your grandmama hasn’t taught you anything valuable?”  
“Maybe there are other things to learn,” he said, challenging her. “What is this castle? Your notes on it say something about housing children. Is it a school? For kids like me?”  
“There is no such school! You think someone wants to teach ungrateful little boys like you? I suppose everything your grandmama has slaved over for the past 8 years to teach you, all of the spells, all of the knowledge, all of the magic means nothing to you. I suppose those gringo sticks that the mundanos use to pull rabbits out of hats are more important. After everything I’ve done for you, you repay me with talk about schools and wands. Well, I forbid you from looking for that castle. Ever. Don't you see? All of this that we’re doing, to leave this country, is to keep you safe.”  
“I thought my mother said it was because of the villagers,” Timo replied mockingly.  
“Is this what all of this is about? Your unsettled issues with your mother? Well, young man, you will learn in life, there are many things a lot harder than resenting your mother.”  
“You mean my mother resenting me,” he argued. She slapped his cheek, but it felt like a punch in the gut. And as his watering eyes darted around the room, trying to make sense of his situation, his mother left the garden with her head down.  
“That’s enough from you,” his grandmama ended the conversation.  
When he felt the well of hot tears, brought on by panic and rage, building in his eyes, he ran out of the garden, down the hill to a river behind their house. He felt childlike, subsiding to his anxiety and fear, not like the young man his grandmama always reminded him he was.  
He stayed at the river until the moon was high in the sky. After hours of sitting alone with his anger, his grandmother found him with the help of her walking cane. The rage that had been calmed by the soothing river had flared in him again at the sight of her.  
“Why are you lying for her?” he asked, still looking at the small river. “I know we’re leaving because of her.”  
“She is your mother!” His grandmother exclaimed.  
“What a time for her to begin to act like it,” he spat.  
“Get up!” she barked, eyes with the same determination he saw the first day she taught him.  
He shot up in front of her. She shoved a few clay beads into his hand.  
“I want the river to burst,” she said.  
“What?” he replied, confused. SMACK! She slapped him on the back with her cane.  
“Ow! Grandma–”  
“I want the river to burst!” she repeated.  
He took one of the beads and whispered a spell. He threw it into the river, angrily, and water from the river exploded into the air.  
“I want the river to part,” she said.  
Another bead went into the water and the river separated.  
“I want the river to burn,” she said.  
He threw the last bead into the water and the water turned to fire. She adjusted his collar and squeezed his shoulder. Her touch made the tears reappear in his eyes. The anger that burned in his stomach, warmed the helplessness in his throat.  
“I don’t want to die this angry,” he confessed to his grandmother, now sobbing again.  
“Nobody is dying today, Timoteo,” she replied. “Now, stop being so dramatic. Let’s go home.”  
His grandmother scaled the hill back up to their home, relying heavily on her cane, and Timo followed, wiping tears from his face.  
He felt like a child on that river, anger and anxiety vibrating through his body. He didn’t care anymore about what his mother wanted or what his grandmother instructed him to do. In his great anger, he decided he would go to America to find out what that castle was and to find a wand to forge a path on his own. He wiped all of the tears from his face that made him weak and he promised himself, right there, that would be the last time he would be that childish again.  
They were set to leave in two and a half weeks’ time, but their plans were suddenly fast tracked. Timo sat at his grandmama’s kitchen table looking over a map of the border. Like most Mexicans crossing the Frontera, illegally, his mother hired the help of a coyote. His thoughts became anxiety thinking about the trek when he was snapped back into reality by his mother, who bolted through the front door and slammed it shut behind her. With no time to speak, she ran through the house filling two leather pouches, stuffing item after item into them. His grandmama rushed in from the garden to find out what was going on.  
“They found us,” said his mama, with fear in her voice. Without missing a beat, his grandmother hurried around the house, to help fill the pouches, whose sizes never changed no matter how many things they put inside of them.  
“Grandmama, I’m scared,” he admitted, following her around the house.  
“Well, there’s no time for that,” she didn’t stop to speak, “we’re going to have to leave now.”  
After a few minutes of scavenging the house for essential items, they all stopped in the living room and his grandmother put her hands on both of their shoulders.  
“Timo,” she said to him, “I’m going to have to stay behind. You must listen to every one of your mother’s instructions. And you must be brave–”  
“Grandmama, no!” Timo fought back, terrified, “I know we fought the other day, but I can’t do this without you. I still have so much to learn.”  
His mother, nodded in agreement, grabbed him by the shoulders and hugged him tight. Timo’s panic became discomfort trying to remember the last time she hugged him. She let him go and whispered into his gradmama’s ear.  
“Are you sure about this?” she asked her. And without answering, they tearfully embraced each other. Timo might’ve joined them if they weren’t interrupted by an explosion at the door that took out most of the wall it opened on. His mother, protectively stepped in front of them and with strategic waves of her hand, levitated the large pieces of clay and stone that once made up the wall into the air.  
“Leave now!” she told them as footsteps approached the used-to-be front door. He smiled; in awe of her magical strength he had never seen before.  
“Thank you, mama,” he called out to her, not sure it was the right thing to say.  
“Timo, protect your grandmama and never forget who you are, a Buendia.”  
“I promise,” he answered.  
Timo wanted to stay and fight with his mother but true to his word to protect her, he followed his grandmama out of the back of the house. He helped her run down the hill and through the river, into the tall grass field that stretched for miles out of the village. He looked back at his grandmother’s home in time to catch the explosion that leveled the hill it and his mother were on.  
Aunt Rosalia sat at the table staring into the air, silently. Timo knew it couldn’t have been easy for her to absorb.  
“I promise I’ll do everything in my power to help you,” she said, rising from the breakfast table. She put her hand on his cheek and retired into her bedroom. Sally shot an accusing stare at Timo as she began to clear the table.  
“I’m still eating,” said Astor, wrestling his plate from her grip.  
That same evening, Rosalia emerged from her bedroom and took the boys into a small and dingy shed behind her cottage. A purple tapestry hung on the back wall and a small table with pink and purple crystals on top stood in the middle of the shed under a lone skylight. Sally was already in the shed, placing big round cushions around the table to sit on. As they all sat on the cushions around the table, Sally pulled the cushion out underneath Timo, whose butt slammed into the shed floor. Rosalia snatched the cushion back from Sally and shooed her away with one of the crups hiding underneath the table.  
“I’m afraid I have one more burden to place upon your back,” she explained. “I have the part of your past from which your grandmama and my sister were trying to protect you; the reason the scourers are after your life.”  
“So, they are after me for a reason,” said Timo leaning into the light above the table.  
“Yes. You see, I am a seer,” said Rosalia, picking up stones from a carved box in her lap. She placed them onto the table, and they shone beautifully in the moonlight, a silky silver glow emanating from their center.  
“These stones each contain a memory valuable to me, most prophecies I have made. Others, memories I simply wish to keep.”  
“Does that mean you can see into people’s pasts?” asked Astor, fidgeting on his cushion.  
“I am able to divine moments of great consequence,” she clarified, “and certain people’s parts in these moments. When I was young, living in Mexico with my mother, I offered this service to the villagers under the hill. The mundanos paid well for any clue about their purpose.” She waved her wand and summoned a small glass oval case with a single stone inside. She took the stone from its case and placed it onto the center of the table. Timo had only heard of divination magic and was rapt by its practice. He could tell by Astor’s big eyes and wide-open mouth that it was the first time he had seen this magic too.  
“When I left your grandmamas house, my sight, eventually, led me to a woman who was raised in a magical native tribe called the Tepanika. Their reservation lies a couple hundred miles north of here in Oklahoma. We became friends and after the MACUSA marked me as a wanted person for performing wandless magic, she convinced the tribe to take me in. You see, here in America, every wizard must register their wand until they are of age. Because I wasn’t of age yet, they forced me to register under my dead name– the name I was given at birth– when I insisted on registering as a witch, they denied me. So, I stayed in the tribe’s bounds, never leaving, and when I proved my worth as a seer, they made me this wand, trained me, and over time, I gained status sharing my prophecies. Sixteen years ago, the year before you were born, I made a prophecy about you. You must know, times were different then. Dark magic was coming to light in America and in many other parts of the world. The dark sorcerer was rising in Europe, as well as the evil giants in Brazil. The Tepanika long suspected the scourers were operating underground, even infiltrating parts of MACUSA and some native tribes. To help weed out any infiltrators, for the good of the tribe, I tried to focus my sight on the scourers, and I happened upon your prophecy.”  
Rosalia placed her palms upon the pink and purple stones on the table with the prophecy in the center. The table began to vibrate as the silver web from the stone twisted itself and congealed into a new form on the table. In the cloud of thought projecting from the stone, he saw a picture of a younger aunt Rosalia at a table much like the one they sat around. She spoke in a horse, static tone voice, as if in a trance, “The one who will have the power to finally undo the great American mercenaries, dogmatic magic-kind traitors, corrupt vigilantes in the North, will be born heir to the last great house of the half-blood curandera beyond the southern border, bearing the blood of a scourer, himself. For he will be protected by ancient magic bestowed upon the fabled militants, a forgotten history he shall conquer, great river will he cross to guarantee their downfall.”  
“That… that means me?” asked Timo, confounded by what he had just heard. Although he knew the answer to the question he asked, disbelief controlled his thoughts.  
“I’m afraid so,” she replied. “Of course, they had infiltrated our tribe as well and once word of the prophecy was out, they came after me. I left the tribe, against the wishes of their leaders and my best friend, thinking it was the only way to keep everyone safe. I had MACUSA after me and now I would call the attention of the scourers, who were only growing in power. I left and hid here under a fidelious charm. Only that photograph I sent to your mother with those words behind it, could grant her access to me. But when your mother wrote to me and told me you were born and who your father was, I knew I had to warn her. Yes, as you may have guessed: your father was a scourer. A very important one, I might add.  
“Weeks later, your mother wrote me a letter telling me that she and your grandmama lied to your father. Because only small details of the prophecy were known, they relayed a false prophecy in full. They convinced him that the child to bring an end to the scourers would be his first born. So, your father took your mother’s first child, a girl, your sister, abandoned you and your mother and killed her.  
“I know your mother and your grandmother only did what they thought would cause the least amount of damage. But your father abandoning his family, set many very bad things in motion. Since then, their lives became about keeping you safe. Now with what you’ve told me, I’m sure they finally found where my mother’s house was, even under all of her spells and enchantments. They broke your family, Timo. They are responsible for the deaths of all of our relatives and many more. You are the one who has been chosen to stop them once and for all.”  
Timo felt that rage firing up inside of him again. The one he felt every time his grandmother lied to him or when his mother neglected him. But this time when he looked up into his aunt Rosalia’s eyes and squeezed Astor’s hand, his rage subsided.  
“I think we need to be honest about me,” said Astor, as Timo nodded in agreement. “Please don't be mad at Timo, he was alone after his grandmama passed–”  
“You trained to be a scourer, I know,” she said matter of fact. The boys widened their eyes at each other, in shock. “You think I’d stay hidden all these years without knowing every move my enemies make? Oh, my dear, I knew by the way you looked at my nephew when I had you both in that full body curse, only the threat of harming him, that you could be trusted. You’ve helped keep my nephew safe. I am indebted to you for that.”  
Astor shook himself out of shock, puffed his chest, and squeezed Timo’s hand harder,  
“I care about him, very much,” he said.  
Astor’s confession out loud made Timo’s stomach turn. Although his aunt voiced her acceptance, there was still some small voice in his head that expected rejection.  
“I know this is very much to take in, Timo,” said Rosalia. “Know that we are safe here. And you and Astor are welcome to stay here for as long as you’d like. You don't have to do anything at all. Prophecy or not.”  
“You told me on the way here, you could live out here forever,” Astor reminded him.  
It was true. Timo couldn’t care less about a prophecy made about him he had no say in, about a father he never knew. The guilt in his stomach for the deaths of his family outweighed that. But he still had the picture of the castle in his mind. He still longed for a wand like Astor, like aunt Rosalia. Even though his wants scared him, he remembered the promise to himself on that river. “I want to fight,” he told them both.  
“Timo, please understand,” pleaded Astor. “I’ve been in the thick of it. These men are ruthless and evil. The horrible things they do to people–”  
“I don't really have a choice, do I? I was chosen,” replied Timo.  
“Then there are some things I have to teach you,” she said. “Tomorrow beginning at sunrise, I will teach you to defend yourselves against dark magic. And how to manipulate it to help you.”  
On the first day of what would turn into a weeks-long crash course on wand work, Rosalia took them out into a clearing in the animal field to train, only the large cat stayed to watch. It sat upon a perch from a fallen tree and followed Timo with its piercing emerald eyes.  
Timo returned Astor’s wand into his possession, agreeing it would be best to learn with their given magical tools.  
“You can use my wand, Timo,” she handed him her wand. “I won’t need it to teach. And because you’ve never used a wand in a duel, we will start with basics.”  
Even though it wasn't his, Timo felt powerful with her wand in his hand. He felt a swooshing sensation from his hand, up his arm and into his chest. He somehow felt as if the wand allowed him to use it. His aunt started with a levitation charm. Both boys pointed their wands at two rocks in the animal field and attempted to levitate them. As Astor had been trained in basic wand use at school, he levitated the rock on the first try. Timo, on the other hand, did not so much as move the stone.  
“You have the right wand motion,” explained Astor, “You’re not pronouncing it correctly. Just add emphasis on the O, not the A.”  
Timo rolled his eyes before realizing that Astor only had his best interest in mind. “Thank you,” he said stiffly and pronouncing the spell like Astor suggested, he levitated the stone.  
They worked their way up from stones to bales of hay Sally, the pukwudgie, collected from the field, until by the end of the day, they levitated each other. Each evening after practice, Sally the pukwudgie, collected the boys from the field for a walk into the town grocers. At his aunt’s request, they returned home every evening to help a begrudging Sally in the kitchen with dinner as she cursed at them the entire time. They always ate as a family. Astor always exercised after, using housewares as weights. Timo and his aunt always poured over spell books as they all got to know each other properly.  
In the first week, they learned disarming spells, stunning spells and impediment jinxes. By the third day, when Timo became visibly upset as Astor made faster progress with stunning spells, Astor began to fumble the spell on purpose.  
“You don’t have to do that to make me feel better!” said Timo, angrily, even though he knew Astor did nothing wrong.  
“Then should I do this to make you feel better?” Astor shouted. He lifted Timo over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and ran through the field spinning in circles.  
“What do you think you’re doing?” shouted Timo. “Put me down!”  
But Astor kept running up the hill with ease until eventually, either the setting sun or the wind in his face or the feeling of being on top of Astor or a combination of all three made him laugh uncontrollably. They toppled over onto the soft swaying yellow grass and looked up at the sherbet late afternoon sky. In the distance, Astor pointed to a bird with large wings like the one they saw at Chop Hinge mall, flying overhead.  
Astor propped himself up on one elbow and winced in one eye while looking at Timo with the sun behind him. As Timo looked back at Astor, laying in the field, completely at peace, he felt his heart jump start, as if he had slipped on a banana peel.  
“Timo, I need to be honest about something,” said Astor with a shaking in his voice that worried Timo.  
“I was asleep in my bed the night the scourers took me. They locked me in a cage for an animal and carted me off while I cried for my dad like a baby. My dad told me not to come back until I was made a real man. They kept me in the cage for days. I sat in my own filth. I drank from a bucket. I didn’t feel human. They only took me out to feed me and make me train with other scourers. It always ended with many of them jumping me, but I always fought back. All of it was meant to harden me, I think. I was always that kid: the one who picked on the weaker kids because I was afraid. And now I was the weaker kid. The only thing I could think about while I was locked away was my mom. And I made a promise to myself in there. Like you did on the river. I promised that when I could escape, I would. And I would never be that kid again. I promised myself that I’d die before these men took me away again.”  
“We have Rosalia with us now,” said Timo, soothingly. “We don’t need to be afraid anymore.”  
“You’re not understanding me,” explained Astor, with urgency in his eyes. “They came to my house and took me from my bed in the night. I cried for my dad but instead he said goodbye.”  
“What are you saying?” asked Timo, afraid he knew what the answer would be.  
“I told you before,” said Astor, now sobbing properly. “I lived to impress my father. We lived a very comfortable life. Never needed or wanted and I never asked questions. The scourers weren’t anything I hadn’t heard of. They were thugs for hire. But they were respected. And I wanted respect from my father. So, I… I volunteered to join. I know it was wrong. I knew it the second I did it. That’s why I tried to back out of it right away. But you don't say no to them. So, they took me in the middle of the night. And it’s okay if you hate me now because I hate me too. And I’m so ashamed.”  
Astor sobbed uncontrollably into his big hands. Timo threw his arms around Astor and held him tight as he cried.  
“I don’t hate you,” said Timo. “You made a mistake and you suffered for it. You tried to fix it. That’s the important part. It’s not about the bad decisions you’ve made. It’s how you fix them.”  
Sally appeared in the field for the usual walk into town and upon seeing Astor in tears, shot Timo an accusing stare.  
“I didn’t do anything!” Timo shot back.  
Timo remembered Astor mentioning how much he missed his mother’s cooking and he was able to convince Sally to bargain with the butcher for Astor’s favorite comfort food. He didn’t mind that Sally preferred Astor to him because, in truth, he favored Astor too.  
Every morning, in the field with the animals and Sally, Rosalia taught the boys about defensive spells, unforgivable curses and dueling. By the end of the third week, Timo made remarkable progress, never missing a target and even parring even with Astor. If it weren’t for truth, no one would have suspected Astor was trained properly in school and Timo wasn't.  
On what seemed like the hottest day of the year, certainly hotter than anytime Timo could remember, Rosalia sent Astor and the pukwudgie alone on the daily grocery trip so that she and Timo could talk privately, a request Sally was happy to oblige.  
She introduced him to the large catlike animal with beautiful black fur and striking green eyes that watched Timo every day during practice: a Wampus. The cat ambled over to them and grazed its huge body against Timo’s. He took to the Wampus warmly but cautiously, considering its enormous size.  
She sat with him halfway up the hill and watched Astor and Sally walk into the distance. From a basket she carried, she took out a loaf of bread and full jug of drink. Timo ate the bread she cracked in half and nearly spit out the contents of the filled jug.  
“What is that?” asked Timo through a coughing fit.  
“A hooch Sally makes from the fruit in the yard,” she answered with a chuckle.  
“You know she hates me,” replied Timo. “It might be poison.”  
“Oh, she’s just threatened by my love for you,” she replied. Timo found the ease in which she spoke of her feelings for him disarming. To date, the only other person he could remember who loved him was his grandmama and lately, that was a love he questioned, constantly.  
“I love you too,” he replied, as the hooch warmed his chest. “You know, I think grandmama was coming back to find you. Before she passed, she’s the one who told me to look for you. I don't think she understood who you are, but I think she was ready to try.” She smiled at the thought.  
“I found Sally on this field,” said Rosalia, looking around. “She was injured gravely, almost dead when I found her, and I nursed her back to health. You see, normally, nobody would be able to find me under my fidelious charm, unless I was tracked, but pukwudgies have powers most magical-kind disregard. After I nursed her to health, she told me that she had been sick for some time and she was told by pukwudgie and wizard-kind alike that I was the only witch who could help her, having learned healing from my mother, the fabled curandera. They were right.  
“Pukwudgies are fiercely proud and loyal creatures. And so, as repayment, she pledged her life to me. And even though I’ve freed her– magically, and not– many times, she has never left my side. But, to this day, she has never revealed her true name to me. So, I named her Sally.”  
“I wish I could just stay here. With you and Astor. And even Sally.”  
“You could,” she told him. “You don't have to do any of this. I can keep you both safe here. I promise you. The scourers may have MACUSA in their pockets, but they aren’t the only magical authority on these lands. The magical natives might be able to help keep us safe, as well. If that’s what you choose.”  
Timo half smiled at his aunt and she smiled back, both knowing that’s not something he could ever choose.  
“Will you ever return to them? Your tribe?” asked Timo.  
“I’ve thought about it,” she replied, honestly. “Maybe one day when this is all over and I can explain myself properly. Why I had to leave.”  
“You think this will be over someday?”  
“It will end the way all things end, Timo,” she explained. “One way or another. Unfortunately, the choices you make from here on out will determine which way that is.”  
“What if I make the wrong choices?” asked Timo, with concern on his brow.  
“I’m sure you didn’t think falling for the boy who tried to kill you was a good idea!” she joked. “But that led you to me, and now you’re safe, you can use a wand. And he’s so cute.”  
They laughed together and Timo blushed so hard his entire face turned red.  
“Sometimes, our most painful choices reward us most abundantly,” she assured him. “And sometimes, we suffer.”  
“And what if I choose to suffer?” asked Timo.  
“Then you keep on fighting,” she grumbled. “Maybe, in the end, we are all made to suffer, but as long as we’re living, we keep on fighting."  
“I’m scared,” confessed Timo. “I’m scared to lose you, to lose Astor. I’m scared the prophecy was wrong and I don't have any power. I’m scared I’ll be alone, and I won’t be able to do it on my own.”  
“But you have me,” she reminded him. “We are a family now. And I’m not going anywhere. And what’s more important is that we weren’t born to each other; we chose each other. You, me, Astor, Sally, even the animals in the field; we are foreigners on this land, and many small-minded people here will remind you. We do not look the way they do or talk the way they do or live the way they do or love the way they do. But you and me, and the rest of us, we have each other’s backs. That’s what a chosen family does. We stay true to ourselves and to each other. If it rains outside, my umbrella covers us all, right?”  
Timo was soothed by her words. Before a couple of weeks ago, he never knew family other than his grandmama, he never knew of any other brujos or witches or wizards or seers or pukwudgies. He never knew of a prophecy or what scourers were trying to kill him or which magical government would protect him. This world he inhabited was vastly larger than the one in which he received lessons from his grandmama over a cauldron in the garden. This world seemed almost too big to grasp. But he knew, with her help, and certainly with Astor by his side, the only way was forward, whatever that meant.  
“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to fulfill a prophecy or destroy a scourer or find a castle.”  
“We can begin together,” she said, she took his hand, helped him up off the hill and they rode on the Wampus cat back to the cottage.  
Sally and Astor returned with the groceries and she, the pukwudgie, prepared a meaty stew with fresh vegetables so tasty, even she had nothing to complain about during dinner. The boys took on the cleanup, as Rosalia washed up and the pukwudgie tended to the animals. When they were alone, Astor put his hand on Timo’s.  
“I want you to know I’m here for you,” said Astor. “Wherever this takes us, I’m by your side.”  
“I still don’t know why,” confessed Timo. “You could leave anytime you want.”  
“And miss wand practice and dinner every night?” He joked. Timo laughed and then leaned his head in and rested it against Astor’s forehead.  
The glass in Timo’s hand he had just finished towel drying shattered. He whipped his head around to the door in the same instant Astor tackled him onto the floor as an explosion took out the kitchen window.  
“They’ve found us!” called out his Aunt’s voice. “Get to the shed!”  
The boys belly crawled to the next room to collect their belongings as curses flew overhead and ran out of the back of the cottage. In the back, Aunt Rosalia emerged from the shed with stones in one hand and her wand in the other. The pukwudgie was nowhere in sight. More curses flew at them, though they could not tell where from. Astor drew his wand and Timo readied his carved triangle and pouch. Aunt Rosalia, with a wave of her wand, cracked open the top half of the cottage, like an egg, and used it to create a barrier between them and the flying curses. Dozens of curses collided with the barrier as particles and debris flew into the air. She instructed the boys to stay low and bring all of the animals to safety.  
“Reveal yourselves!” she called out scattering the stones in the field, and the curses stopped.  
Timo and Astor counted the crups and Kneazels, owls and a handful of gnomes but the Wampus was nowhere to be found. Rosalia climbed on top of the barrier with a view of the field and a dozen scourers glowing, briefly frozen, in the moonlight under her spell.  
“The enigmatic Rosalia Tepanika,” shouted one of the veiled men. “You should know, once we’ve killed the boy, we’re collecting you for the bounty MACUSA has placed on your head. You are a wanted man, after all.”  
“You will not be doing any collecting or killing today, scourer.”  
“Be smart,” he continued. “There are twelve of us and one of you. Or do you count for two? I’ve never understood you people.”  
“For that reason, you will lose,” she said confidently.  
“Tell you what,” he reasoned, “give us the boy and we’ll let you go free. And we’ll grant Astor mercy. We know you’re here too—” shouted the scourer.  
“This will only end one way, tonight,” his aunt interrupted. “And it will not be pleasant for you.”  
“Stupid witch-wizard.” The scourer jeered, “Your arrogance will cost your life.”  
Then a profusion of jet streams of red light filled the night sky. Aunt Rosalia rebounded every single one, delivering curses of her own, moving seamlessly across the top of the barricade. Another spell from her wand lit the immediate field in front of them on fire and the scourers began to advance, despite. Rosalia took cover with the boys.  
“We can help,” said Timo to his aunt breathing heavily.  
“You can help me best by keeping cover.” She cupped his chin with her hand.  
The scourers split into small groups around the barrier and soon, the boys had no option but to join the fight. Rosalia traded curses with six wizards and Timo and Astor stood back to back, using the defensive spells they were taught in the last month, against the others.  
The boys used the fire to their advantage to keep the scourers in front of them but there were far too many. When Rosalia noticed the boys’ struggle to contain them, she crushed more stones in her hand and simultaneously, while she defended herself, a faint projection of her flew over to the boys and pushed the pack of scourers into the flames. Two apparated into the sky and three, with the help of an explosion bead from Timo didn’t make it out of the fire.  
Timo and Astor parried curses from the sky and Rosalia, who stood in the middle of a manmade whirlwind, knocked the scourers back, one by one with the violent wind. They all drew back as she took cover with the boys in the shed and sprinkled a pink salt around the perimeter.  
Holding herself up on the table, heaving, she instructed, “You boys will have to leave tonight. Go to the Tepanika. Tell them you are my kin. They will help you.”  
“Please,” begged Timo, “We’ve lost everyone. I can’t lose you too. We can fight.”  
“I can’t,” she pushed back, “I can’t do my best with you two here. You are not safe here. I've already recognized two of these men as MACUSA aurors. We are dealing with forces much bigger than us. If you can get away unnoticed, I can create cover for you.”  
“No, you can’t” said Astor. “It’s my fault—”  
“My word is final. As your tia and your teacher. Do you understand?” Rosalia interjected.  
The boys nodded in agreement. She led them back outside sending curses and jinxes aimlessly with Astor. Timo, firing bead after bead, pieces of earth, exploding into the air. Rosalia with her wand, spun three frozen wizards in the air, and with the other hand animated stone debris to defend against another four. Timo and Astor worked together against two wizards before Astor took a curse to the rib that knocked him bloodied onto the ground. Timo took his wand and continued alone against the two wizards. The scourers were far too prepared and far too many for any effective offense.  
Suddenly, climbing in from the top of the barrier, was Sally, the pukwudgie on the Wampus’ back. The Wampus dove onto the two wizards dueling with Timo and took them down easily. Rosalia gathered the remaining wizards in a magical bind and launched them into the sky.  
“Go now!” she yelled. “Before they come back.”  
Timo couldn’t leave. All of the courage he had in him at this moment, was still not enough to leave his only living family left.  
“Timo, we have to go now!” Astor said, bleeding out of his side.  
“Tia Rosalia,” Timo called out to her, “I can’t do it!”  
“Timo, stay together. Keep Astor close. Do you understand? Remember who you are. I’ll see you again very soon.”  
She took him in her arms and squeezed him. Knowing he would not be able to go on his own, she turned to the pukwudgie.  
“Sally, take them from here, as repayment for my service. This is my final instruction for you as your master.”  
And at this instruction, she let Timo go and created a tornado of debris from the once cottage, which she launched into the sky, capturing the scourers one by one. She watched them leave, looking into Timo’s eyes, as the pukwudgie took each of the boys’ hands, and disapperated.

Cat. Goblin. Snake. Bird. Boy.

They apparated into a clearing in the middle of a cactus field. Astor collapsed onto his back with a bent arm on his bloodied ribs. Sally, the pukwudgie, helped apply pressure while continuing her normal mumbling drivel. Timo, bent over, sobbing, loudly. His aunt, just like his mother on the hill and his grandmother before the border, had sacrificed herself for him. He was sure if he could just apparate back to her, he could help her fight. But he remembered she had sent him away. He felt that fire he did as a child at the river or when his grandmother was murdered. The fire he often quelled for his own sake. Now he refused to ignore it. He pounded his fists into the ground, over and over, crying loudly, until his knuckles cracked open and bled. Sally watched him, cursing him under her breath.  
He might’ve felt entirely alone, he thought, if it wasn’t for Astor. Of course, Astor! He looked over at his companion, his friend, his rock, his boyfriend? He was on his back, trembling, barely conscious, blood covered his body. Timo crawled to him on all fours, apologizing for his pain with every movement of his body.  
“Don't help me,” Astor cried. “I deserve this.”  
“I’m going to figure out what’s wrong okay?” said Timo, digging deep into the earth.  
“This is all my fault,” said Astor, using all of the strength he had just to speak.  
Timo dug until he felt the earth grow mushy and soft. He took a scoop of it and reached into his leather pouch. He unstoppered a bottle he found inside and spread its contents on the wet dirt in his hands. He created a temporary solution for the very wounded that his grandmama taught him to make as part of his training to be a healer.  
“This will stop the bleeding, but we have to get you to a real healer,” said Timo.  
After whispering an incantation to the wet scoop of dirt, he smoothed it all over Astor’s wound as he cursed in agony. Timo apologized over and over and promised he would find help.  
“Stop,” cried Astor, with eyes half open. “The scourers, everything, it’s all my fault.”  
And then he drifted off. Timo tried to shake him awake but Astor was out cold. Scared and out of options, Timo turned to Sally for help. “Apparate us to a hospital, please!” He pleaded.  
The pukwudgie refused. It was a miracle that they arrived where they did in one piece. Having been bound to his aunt, Sally had to apparate Astor in his condition. But now that he was worse, he would surely be splinched if they tried to apparate again.  
Timo could not think of a solution. He curled into a ball next to a sleeping Astor and began to weep again. He had agreed to fight but only with the help of his aunt, who was now, surely dead, and with Astor by his side, who was moving only closer there. In this realization, he felt completely alone. Sally watched him with disapproval in her big pukwudgie eyes. He only saw Rosalia in her; their last conversation in the field where she found Sally. He remembered her advice: as long as we’re living, we keep fighting.  
So, he picked himself up and took Astor’s wand out of Sally’s hand, as the pukwudgie cursed at him. Just as he began a spell he only half remembered from his grandmother to better help Astor, a voice called out from the darkness.  
“Put the wand down, friend,” the voice said. “We can help.”  
Timo pointed the wand in the voice’s direction. He and Sally, protectively, circled around Astor, trying to locate the voice. Timo knew better now than to be unguarded.  
“You are on Tepanika land now,” the voice said. “If we wanted to kill you, we would be well within our right. So please put down the wand.”  
Two men emerged from the darkness in robes made of painted burlap, adorned with beautiful flowers. They, too, had wands in their hands, similar to the wand Timo’s aunt had herself. Timo knew at once; they were the natives his aunt told him about: the tribe who would help him.  
“My name is Timoteo Beundia. Rosalia Beundia is my aunt and last living kin. She sent me here for help,” said Timo shakily.  
The two men looked at each other in shock. He knew helping Astor hinged on the two men believing him. He reached into his pouch and presented the compass necklace. At the sight of it, the men bowed their heads in respect. Using their wands, they raised Astor into the air and asked Timo and Sally to follow.  
After walking a large distance, they arrived into a village with rows of small adobe buildings in a circular plot with a bigger building in the center. They followed the men into one of the smaller surrounding buildings. Inside, a woman in a large, ornate headpiece and entire body painted, ushered the men with Astor onto a floor mat near a fire in the center of the room. Timo and Sally waited on wooden stools in the corner of the small room. She waved her hands over Astor’s wound and then raised a wand from out of a carved box and whispered spells as she hovered it over his stomach. The layer of dirt on the wound melted into his body and a thin layer of raw skin appeared over the open wound. The witch continued to move her wand over his entire body when she came to a sudden stop.  
“I need his wand,” she extended her hand to where they sat. Timo looked at Sally worriedly and turned over the wand.  
Looking around the solemn space, he didn't dare disrupt whatever fine balance had been created, especially if it meant helping Astor. After a few moments of looking at Astor sleeping, Timo had the urge to look up at the witch. As soon as he did, their eyes met. Their gaze was unbroken by anything other than the swirling smoke and soft crackle of the burning firewood.  
“There has been somebody following you?” she asked, looking over the wand.  
“Yes, what’s wrong?”  
“Nothing yet,” she replied, while fanning the fire in the center of the room, under a skylight.  
“There is much between you two, both secrets shared and conflict,” she did not pose a question, but Timo felt the need to answer.  
“I don’t know how to talk to him about it,” he responded, color rising to his cheeks.  
“Your thoughts are clear like a storied starry sky. Your friend’s mind, only a bright moon shines behind thick clouds.”  
She took Astor’s wand to the fire. Overhead the large dome opened up to the night sky– the bright stars were obscured by low laying clouds and the sweet wet smoke rising from the fire slowly purring. She ruminated over a collection of objects in a carved box: small plants, stones, and a large egg. She selected the egg and cracked it over the tip of the wand. The slimy yolk dripped into the fire and the flames billowed out, violently, into the abode opening, as the fire grew twice its size. A thunderbird like the one at the Chop Hinge mall, appeared over the opening and extended its wings. It flapped them with such force, the witch nearly fell over as she held the wand over the open flames. The bird screeched loudly and, in its cry, drew a dark spirit from the wand that manifested as a cloud of smoke that was enveloped by the fire. The fire ceased and the large bird gave the witch an unnerving look before taking flight.  
The witch keeled over as Timo rushed to her side. He and Sally helped the witch to a stool and seconds later two women with long braided hair and equally long silk robes barged through the door. They looked to the feeble witch on the wooden stool.  
“You completed a thunderbird cleanse?” One of the women asked worriedly. The seated witch nodded and the women looked at each other with wide eyes.  
“The reservation counsel is requesting your presence in the main chambers,” one of the women spoke to Timo, who looked worriedly at Astor. “Immediately.”  
“Is he going to be okay?” he asked the witch. She nodded and he thanked her before following the women, along with Sally, out of the hut.  
The main building was a large simple white building with three main rooms inside connected by a long hallway. Timo and Sally were taken to the room in the center by the same two men who brought them to the reservation. Inside, was a long desk with stacks of papers, crystals and small decorative carvings strewn on top. Behind the desk sat four women with long intricately braided and decorated hair, two men, one with a beautifully painted face, and one child: a girl with two buns on the side of her head.  
They looked upon Timo and Sally standing in the open space of the room.  
“This is an emergency council meeting to determine the cause of unsolicited foreign visitation on the sacred reservation. All those present, say I.”  
Every council member behind the desk called back.  
“Who are you and what is the nature of your business here?” asked the woman in the center.  
“My name is Timoteo Buendia, last living kin of Rosalia Buendia of the Tepanika. We were sent here by her for help.”  
The council whispered to each other with, obviously, affected faces.  
“Where is Rosalia now?” asked the woman.  
“We were attacked,” Timo said, suppressing the suffocating air in his belly at the thought. “My… Astor, the boy I’m with, is being tended to by a healer here. Scourers followed me and my grandmother over the border a few weeks ago. They killed her and tonight they found us at my aunt’s home. I’m not sure she made it. But she sacrificed herself for me to make it here to you all. She said you would help me.”  
“Scourers!” shouted the man with no makeup.  
“I apologize for your aunt’s promises but our tribe’s allegiance to your aunt is split,” said the woman. “Many of our people are angry with her for abandoning her duties to us.”  
“My aunt didn’t abandon anybody,” said Timo, with venom in his voice. “She did what she had to do to protect you people. The same way she protected me.”  
Many of the members displayed postures of disapproval. Some of them laughed.  
“If I may,” said Sally, the pukwudgie, in a raspy voice, slowly looking at each of the council members, “I have voluntarily been in Mistress Rosalia’s service for many years and I know what this young wizard says to be true. She has expressed her regret for leaving for many years through her words and tears. I believe she still watches over your tribe from afar. The same stones that lay on your table are the stones she uses at her divination table. They are connected, aren’t they.”  
The faces of the council people flattened. Some of them cleared their throats and tried not to look at the crystals on the table.  
“I appreciate your passion,” said another woman behind the table, “but some of us do not share the same sentiments about her, I’m afraid. What is it you are seeking here?”  
The truth was Timo hadn’t given much thought to what his next move would be. He wasn’t sure what he needed from the tribe. But short of asking for an army to fight scourers he knew what the next best thing would be.  
“I need you to make me a wand.”  
The council was outraged. The man with no makeup slammed his hand on the table while most of the other members cursed out loud.  
“Young man,” began the man with makeup. “We should kick you off of our land immediately for what you’re asking. It is an egregious disrespect to request a wand from our council. A wizard does not choose a wand.”  
“My aunt protected your tribe and gave you all of her sight. You owe this to her.” Timo didn’t care about who he offended.  
“You are out of line!” replied the man with no makeup, leaning over the table.  
“For what reason do you need a wand?” the child spoke up.  
“We cannot entertain this request!” yelled the man with no makeup.  
He was quieted by the center woman’s flat hand in the air.  
“My aunt made a prophecy about me when I was born. It is the prophecy that turned your tribe into a target of the scourers. I will be the one to stop them. And I need a wand to do it,” Timo said, surprised himself at his conviction. In announcing his intention, Timo felt purpose.  
“We were a target of the scourers long before your aunt's prophecy,” said the woman in the center. “The magical community has often written off the magical natives. They’ve stolen our land, our resources and all but cast us out of their leaderships. The scourers play an integral role in all of those movements against us.”  
“I didn’t know,” said Timo, realizing he had years of history stacked against him.  
“You fought against the scourers and survived?” asked the man with makeup.  
“Yes. But I had help from my aunt and before that from my grandmother.”  
“You witnessed your grandmother use magic again?” the man’s face lit up.  
“Yes. again?” asked Timo, “You knew my grandmother?”  
“Long ago, before Rosalia came to us. Many of our tribe originated in Mexico and your grandmother was a formidable witch. But she went into hiding to protect the blood traitor: your mother, who married one of them.”  
“I’m here because of her. And I’m here to defeat the scourers for what they’ve done to my family. For what they’ve done to your tribe. And I need your help. I need a wand.”  
All of the council members looked at him and then around at each other.  
“All in favor of aiding Timo Buendia with a wand,” said the man with no makeup.  
“I”  
“No” said the man with beautiful makeup.  
“No”  
“No.”  
“I” said one of the witches.  
“I” said the child.  
“No,” exhaled the witch in the center.  
“The request is denied. I’m sorry. As a courtesy to you and your family, I will extend your visitation on our grounds until your friend heals. Two days should be enough time. After then, we ask that you move on from here, Mr Buendia. Good luck.”  
And with that, all of the council members stood up out of their seats and exited the room through a rear door. Timo let out a huge defeated sigh and hunched over with his hands on his knees. Sally rolled her big gray eyes at him and put her hand on his.  
They made their way together, though the rows of adobe houses back to Astor’s healing place. He thought about the council decision. They called Astor his friend. And while he knew that was the correct word, he was sure, that’s not what he felt for Astor. In fact, ever since they met, every decision he made had been influenced by his feelings for Astor.  
When they arrived he was still asleep. The witch healer brewed tea over the open flames in the center of the room. Usually, Astor would catch Timo’s glance when he entered a room but now, Astor’s striking brown eyes were nowhere to be seen.  
“You can sleep there at his feet,” the witch gestured to the covered body that belonged to a sleeping Astor. The pit holding the fire back was larger than it first appeared and the body, covered by a shiny woolen blanket, was hidden by the bright light of the flames.  
“Don’t worry. He’s recovering under the mantel. It has strands of Veela hair braided throughout it so to help the mind and body relax. I’ll sit here, at his head.” As she lowered herself to the floor, her clothing and hair looked as if they were buoyed by the smoke slowly finding its way up and out of the ceiling. Timo laid on the bare concrete and quickly drifted into oblivion.  
A dark path the leads up onto a hill. On top of that hill, stands a tree. The tree is dark, and the wood looks more like scales. The tree doesn’t sway, but slithers back and forth. Timo can’t stop his ascension towards it. It speaks to him “ssssalazar… ssslytherin…” two big red eyes appear in the trunk of the tree. They feel hot as Timo’s body approaches. It draws him close; the eyes burn. Timo’s skin begins to boil as the eyes grow bigger and bigger.  
Timo woke with a start, attempting to catch his breath, panting and coughing. He looked up at the healing witch standing over him, her brows furrowed.  
“How long have you been having these dreams?” she asked, as if she, too, saw what he did.  
“A few weeks now. Since I came to this country,” answered Timo.  
“You are close to what you seek,” she told him. “You have much to learn from your friend. But, some advice from an old woman: stay true to your path. Do not dwell on the past.”  
Timo nodded at her as if he understood any of what she meant. He touched his arms, his chest and his body to make sure he was not on fire, like he felt in his dream. The sun was already up in the sky and the wound on Astor’s stomach was now a long raw scar. Timo couldn’t help but feel partly responsible. His feelings for Astor, now, were so palpable, he couldn’t remember the way he felt when they first met. He lightly put a finger on the disfigurement on Astor’s rib and at his touch, Astor woke. The witch hurried over with a cup of tea.  
“Timo, I’m so sorry,” said Astor in between gulps and gulps of hot tea. “It’s all my fault. I think it’s my wand. How else could they have found us?”  
Timo, ignoring Astor, looked at him and mustered up all of the courage he had.  
“Astor, I have feelings for you—” he blurted out.  
“What?” asked Astor, confused.  
“And I don’t know if you have the same feelings for me, but I can’t stop this thing where I am constantly feeling everything about you at the same time.”  
“Yes,” said Astor. Timo looked back confused. “Yes. I have them too. Feelings. A lot. Big ones. For you,” Astor tried to form a sentence.  
They looked at each other and grabbed each other’s arms. Timo bent down on both knees and touched Astor’s lips with his. Timo first felt something similar when he cast his first spell with his aunt’s wand, a swooshing feeling in his chest. He felt it now one hundred-fold in Astor’s arms. The same way he knew the connection with the wand was real, he knew about Astor. They pulled apart and he looked into Astor’s eyes, full of tears, almost in a panic.  
“They tracked my wand. It’s my fault they found us at your aunt’s house.”  
“Your wand had a mark on it. They can find it whenever you use it,” informed the witch.  
“That can’t be true,” said Timo, hoping to clear Astor’s name. “We practiced defensive spells with it for weeks.”  
“You must have been hidden at your Aunt’s house under a fidelious charm,” deduced the witch. “They must have tracked you outside of its perimeter. I had to perform a cleanse. I couldn’t risk the scourers following you here. I should have sent you away the second I found out.”  
“Will my wand remember me?” asked Astor.  
“The bond between wand and wizard is a sacred one. The wand chooses the wizard, you must know. If it is to be cleared of a mark, the cleanse may disrupt that bond,”  
Timo did not understand what it meant to have a wand. He did not know what it meant to be chosen by one. Timo didn't know what to do and the witch didn’t give much direction. But, selfishly, he did know, that he could not continue his journey without Astor by his side. He knew, also, the undercurrent of mistrust he felt for Astor would one day prove itself real. He, Astor, had time and time again, proven himself to Timo, even his aunt thanked him for taking care of him. But now, Timo couldn’t help but remember the small voice that always told him not to trust Astor.  
“How long have you known?” Timo asked with his eyes closed. “If you had the slightest inclination… SHE COULD BE DEAD!”  
“I’m sorry,” pleaded Astor. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think– I’m sorry.”  
“It’s not enough,” replied Timo stiffly. “The only family I had left is dead because of you.”  
Timo tried to stuff the words back in his mouth the second they left his lips.  
“I know this feels like too much,” said Astor, softly. “I hoped I was wrong. And so much time passed– I would never hurt you intentionally. Or your aunt, I love her too.”  
“DONT!” shouted Timo. “You’re right, this is too much.” He began to walk away.  
“Wait!” called Astor. “I can get us to the castle in your photo.”  
“How do you know about that?” asked Timo, accusingly.  
“You told us about it, remember?” Astor reminded him. “One night, at your aunt’s cottage, you fell asleep reading through spell books, and you left your notebook open on the picture. I looked at it and then I carried you into bed. I even left a note inside your notebook I hoped you’d read. I guess you haven’t looked inside since.”  
“You had no business looking through my things,” Timo said self-righteously.  
“I didn't,” agreed Astor. “But if I hadn’t done it, you wouldn’t know to get to where you need to be.”  
“It seems you have a choice,” said the witch, interjecting. “You cannot trust him, but you need him. It seems as if this has been your journey together so far.”  
Astor recounted one of his trainings with the scourers. While looking through ancient books in their collection, he happened upon a photo of the same castle Timo had in his notebook.  
“Most wizards alive today wouldn’t recognize it,” he told them. “It’s an old incarnation of Ilvermorny school. I saw dozens of photos of the school being built bigger and bigger into what it is today. The photo you have is a very early incarnation of the school from long ago.”  
“How do I get there?” Timo asked, stoic in the face, still upset.  
“You have to be a student, don’t you,” replied Astor, with mischief on his face.  
“It’s hard for me to trust you,” said Timo, truthfully. “And I think my feelings for you are making it hard for me to see this through, objectively.”  
“You can take my wand again,” replied Astor. “I’ll help you get there. I’ll show you the way and you can keep my wand the entire time, like when we first met.”  
“You can’t be much safer around a wizard than that,” said the witch. “That’s an offer you must take.”  
Astor raised his eyebrows with a smile at Timo to which he returned eyes rolled.  
The healing witch offered to construct replica Ilvermorny school robes for the pair. Their plan was simple: As the Ilvermorny Express was the most popular means of transportation to school each term, all they had to do was report to the train station, at the start of term, disguised as students, ready for the ride to Ilvermorny.  
Timo watched Astor sleep that night before drifting off, himself. He tried to remember the afternoons in the animal field, the way his stomach jumped when Astor smiled at him. But to remember those afternoons, would be to also remember his aunt Rosalia, who herself instructed him to keep Astor close. He hoped to wake up the next day to some great epiphany: that he could separate Astor from his aunt’s death, that he could understand the reason for her instruction. But the next morning, he woke up the same.  
The witch presented their robes, which she’d sewn overnight. The beautiful robes were a deep cranberry color, floor length, and held together with a silver clasp around the collar. She gave them each a duffel bag to place their robes in, then the witch spread out a folded map on the floor of the hut.  
“The Ilvermorny express is responsible for transporting over a thousand students each year to campus,” she explained, fingering the map. “Because it travels from the westernmost part of the country, in Washington, down south to Texas, then along the Mississippi, up to Massachusetts, the train begins its tour days ahead of school schedule. Classes begin every year on August first, but new students must report for orientation two weeks before classes begin. They are housed in Greylocke village, the train’s final stop, until they are sorted into houses. Returning students can report at will during that time.”  
The witch calculated the train would be making its way to the final pick up station just outside of New York City. From there it would only be a few hours ride to Greylocke Village. Sally, the pukwudgie, could apparate them to the New York station in time to catch the train. Timo and Astor thanked the witch for her help.  
“Your grandmother was a great woman. And your aunt is as well,” she said.  
“You say it like she’s still here,” he replied. She put her hand on his shoulder and reminded him to forgive himself. “You have to get going. You’re on a schedule,” she gestured to the map.  
The boys each took one of the pukwudgie’s small clammy hands. Timo took one last look at the witch, then felt a hook behind his navel as they disapperated.  
They arrived outside of a train station with a stone archway in the middle and two towers at each end of the arch. Sally crawled into Astor’s duffel, complaining about the limited space as they made their way through the crowds, trying to locate the platform marked on the map the witch gave them. The train was set to depart at exactly 1P and the boys were already behind schedule. A large split flap board overhead, as they entered the station, read a quarter to one while showing the status of all departing trains, the Ilvermorny Express was conspicuously absent from the list.  
The boys scanned the corridors carefully to, hopefully, detect any Wizarding activities but saw nothing. As they hurried up and down the terminals on the main level, Timo noticed about fifty feet ahead of him, the red-head girl from Chop Hinge Mall. The boys followed her until she reached halfway between terminals 13 and 14. From afar, they watched her survey the large hallway, waiting until most of the people nearby were distracted. Timo thought maybe she had recognized them, but instead, the girl, pulling two big suitcases behind her, ran straight into the wall in between the two terminals and disappeared. Perplexed but running out of time, the boys thought it best to do exactly as she did. They wrapped themselves in the mock robes, stood in between the terminals, hand in hand, waited until most of the no-majs weren’t looking and ran straight into the barrier. Instead of breaking every bone in their bodies on impact, they crossed through the barrier onto another platform. Above them, a large split flap board read the time at five minutes to one o’ clock and the wall they came through was transformed into a blue iron archway with the platform number thirteen and one third scrawled across it. The platform was beautiful with granite flooring and high brick walls lined in iron. The train was a long black steam engine with smoke pouring out of the top. Most students were already inside the train and the boys started to sweat as they noticed attendants taking tickets from each of the students as they boarded. Just as they readied to turn back, Timo was suddenly jerked into a dark corner of the platform and pinned against a wall.  
“Hello again, dear,” said the red head from Chop Hinge, wand drawn at Timo’s neck. Astor raced around the corner behind them as the pukwudgie grumbled at the sudden movement.  
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t turn you both in right now,” she threatened.  
“Please,” said Timo. “We are not here to harm anyone. We need to get on that train.”  
“Why don’t you put the wand down,” said Astor, with both hands in the air.  
“I knew you two weren’t from Hogwarts. Where are you both from, really?” she asked.  
“Okay, we’re not from Hogwarts,” admitted Astor. “The truth is, we both came here across the Mexican border. We both lost our parents on our separate journeys and luckily found each other. We’re all we have, and we need to get to your school,”  
Timo was frightened at how easy it was for Astor to manipulate the truth into a story he needed to be true. And while Timo wanted parts of it to be true, too, he couldn’t help but worry.  
“I’m sorry. How did you lose your parents?” she asked, lowering her wand.  
“We were chased by scourers. Our parents were murdered,” replied Astor, unsubtle.  
“Scourers?” the girl shrieked with a terror on her face. “They were wiped out ages ago.”  
“He’s telling the truth,” said Timo. “They killed my entire family.”  
“We need to get to your school for safety,” said Astor. “Please, we’re not asking for any help. We just need you to forget that you saw us.”  
She looked at the boys back and forth as if calculating all of the possible outcomes.  
“You’re not asking for my help but you’re going to need it,” she said. “Follow me.”  
They followed behind her towards the train. Timo looked at the clock that now read one minute to departure. They came up to an attendant collecting tickets.  
“Tickets please,” he asked them.  
“My name is Zadie Twelvetree,” the girl told him. “I’m a fifth year and a thunderbird house prefect. These boys are with me.”  
“I’m sorry, miss,” interjected the attendant. “Everybody needs a ticket.”  
“These young men are exchange students from Hogwarts that I am chaperoning. We were given special permission to board from the headmaster, herself.”  
“Hogwarts!” exclaimed the man. “Why didn’t you say so? Say, how’s old Mcgonagal doing? We played a quidditch friendly with the Gryffindors in my fifth year.”  
“Great! Mcgonagal’s great!” said Astor with a big smile.  
The three nodded. After they promised to pass along greetings to old Mcgonagal, the attendant stepped aside as they boarded.  
Zadie led them through the connecting cars until they reached an empty compartment. Outside, a loud whistle sounded, as the trains engines began whirring beneath their feet.  
“You’re a prefect?” asked Astor, letting Sally out of his small duffel bag.  
“You brought a pukwudgie? Do you know how much trouble I could be in?” she looked down at the creature. “What’s your name, beautiful?”  
Sally looked up at Zadie contemptuously, and showed a finger.  
“Friendly, isn’t she?” Zadie said disconcertingly.  
“This is Sally,” said Timo. “She was my aunt’s friend and she’s helped us get here. And if I may ask, why are you helping us?”  
“Listen, I know you’re not telling me the whole truth about what you’re doing here but as far as I’m concerned, a thunderbird always helps another thunderbird.”  
“Thunderbird?” questioned Astor. “What do you mean?”  
“When you two showed up at the mall, the thunderbird guided you overhead. That doesn’t happen often. It might’ve not meant anything to either of you, but I’m a thunderbird prefect. One or both of you summoned that bird.”  
“I don’t want to put you in anymore danger,” said Timo. “Thank you for all your help but we can take it from here.”  
“Why don’t you quit implying what I’m capable of and tell me what you’re doing so I can decide for myself, okay sugar?” Zadie said with a facetious smile on her face.  
“You’re right,” said Timo, conceding. “You’ve already showed us you do want to help. The least we can do is be honest.”  
Timo and Astor recounted the whole story for Zadie from the beginning as the train left the station. When it came time for Sally’s role in the story, they looked to the pukwudgie but she only mumbled more curses under her breath. In the end, Zadie apologized for threatening to turn them in. She offered her condolences for each of Timo’s family members and for Astor’s parents. Zadie confessed to taking on summer jobs and extra schoolwork on winter break to spend less time with her very large, very obnoxious family. Something, she now felt, she might’ve taken for granted.  
“I’m late for the prefect check in,” she said, checking her watch. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t talk to anyone. When I come back, we’ll figure out a plan. I’m in.”  
She looked back and left the compartment. Timo felt good about Zadie. He didn’t know why exactly, but he trusted her immediately. He hoped it wouldn’t be in vain.  
Timo’s eyes were fixed on the scenery outside of the wall to wall window in their compartment. The train travelled along the coast and Timo had never seen the ocean before now. He felt lucky to have seen more of this country in the short time he had been here than of his own country his whole life. He wondered how his grandmama would take it in, had she lived. He wondered if his aunt Rosalia ever saw as much as he had. He noticed Astor looking out over the passing waves crashing into jagged rock.  
“I love the beach,” Astor didn’t break his stare. “I’d like to take you one day, you know?”  
“I’ve never been to the beach,” Timo confessed. Astor swung his head around and caught Timo’s eyes.  
“I’m going to take you one day,” Astor promised, taking his hand. “I’ll take you swimming in the water, bury you in the sand and everything.”  
They were these disarming moments from Astor when Timo believed him. When he could almost forget how they met or what happened since. But he couldn’t bear the guilt of forgetting Rosalia, the guilt that kept Astor away. Still, the second Astor offered his lips, Timo didn’t resist the pull into them. Timo pressed his lips on Astor’s, and they rested their foreheads against each other, allowing themselves just a few minutes of peace before they were interrupted by Zadie’s return.  
She peeked her head into the compartment and looked around the train corridor conspicuously before she motioned to someone out of view. Rushing in after her, appeared a tall girl with long black hair and tan skin. She wore heavy eyeliner that made her look like she hadn’t slept in a few weeks, her nails were painted black and when she sat on the bench next to Timo, she took up space.  
“I thought you said you didn’t want anyone else to know about us!” complained Astor.  
“This is my best friend, Alita,” Zadie introduced her. “She’s the best in our class at spells and if we’re going to get you to where you need to be, we’re going to need all the trustworthy help we can get.”  
The girl saluted at both boys, “Zadie tells me you guys think you got yourselves some scourers on your tails.”  
“We don’t think,” said Astor, defensively. “We know they’re real. And if you don’t believe us, then maybe you aren’t the best person to help us.”  
The girl threw her hands up and made to leave before being stopped by Zadie.  
“All right, everyone just settle down,” Zadie yelled. “These are the guys I told you about from the mall. With the thunderbird.”  
The girl’s eyes widened as she sat back down.  
“You guys summoned a thunderbird? Which one of you was it?”  
“They don’t know,” Zadie answered for them. “But we have to help.”  
The girl looked back and forth from her friend to Timo and then to Astor.  
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she went on. “I’m going to give you something useful and then you’re going to tell me exactly what it is you’re thinking of doing. Deal? Deal. My dad is an Auror with MACUSA. The past couple of years, the Aurors have been investigating weird acts of violence, stuff they haven’t seen in decades. They even found a young witch near Texas tortured into insanity. He said they’d been hearing whispers about some dark magic returning. But any time they got close; some bureaucratic mess threw them off the trail. He thinks someone’s covering for these people on the inside.”  
“Are you saying that the MACUSA believes they’ve been infiltrated by scourers?” asked Timo.  
She shrugged her shoulders, “Now you.”  
Timo took a deep breath and Astor nodded his head in encouragement.  
“My father was a scourer. He left us before I could walk. I’m looking for something on your school campus that could help me defeat them once and for all.”  
“He’s got an ego on him, doesn’t he?” laughed Alita.  
“His aunt is Rosalia Buendia. She prophesied it. He is the one,” Astor defended him.  
“Wait a minute,” Zadie interjected. “You’re related to The Rosalia Buendia?”  
“You know of her?” Asked Timo.  
“She’s kind of a legend,” answered Alita. “Everybody knows about MACUSA and her unregistered wand. When they went after her, she defeated ten aurors in battle. She was only 16. It was before my dad’s time, but her name is still well known. She’s been in hiding ever since. She didn’t tell you?”  
“She told us about your stupid government,” spat Timo. “But she didn’t gloat about how famous she was.”  
He looked back outside the train window. Sprawling hills extended out of sight as the train moved inland. Suppressing anger at his family for keeping so much from him, he imagined swimming across a wide river that grew wider every time he was given new information about them. He didn’t know if he’d ever reach the other side.  
“Okay then, chosen boy,” mocked Alita. “Say I’m in: what exactly are you looking for?"  
“I think I’m looking for a tree with a trunk made of wood that looks like snake scales.”  
It was the first time he had spoken about his dreams and maybe he was crazy for it, but they had come so far, he accepted every opportunity.  
“Snakewood forest,” said Zadie. “Legend has it the section of snakewood trees started with just one. Now there are dozens outside the south end of the campus, and no one knows for sure which was the first, but we’ll take you there.”  
“Well, that’s where things get a little tricky,” said Astor. “My wand is marked. We are being followed.”  
“No one can get onto Ilvermorny grounds except students and staff,” Zadie spoke confidently.  
“We did,” answered Timo. The four teens looked around at each other, blankly, as the train pulled into their destination.

The Scourers Flight

The train arrived at Mount Greylocke station, in the small village of Greylocke, at the base of the mountain where Ilvermorny stood on top. Ilvermorny students were allowed to visit the village on weekends, during term, and on school breaks with permission from their parents. The village, which housed a few magical families, was home to a notoriously dingy pub and had a large population of owls. As soon as the train doors opened, hundreds of students poured out of the train onto the platform. The sun was setting behind the split flap board identical to the one on platform 13 1/3, that read the time on 18 July 1997.  
Zadie split from the group to help chaperone the new students, as prefect, to the aerial lifts up the mountain to the campus, while Timo and Astor travelled with Alita and Sally through the town to the south side of the mountain. They slipped away from the anxious crowd of new students easily, as Timo watched their bright young faces with envy, ready for the first day of school. The village was nestled in between a backdrop of beautiful green American land and the towering mountains. The summer heat became less violent as the sun hid behind them, but the thick humid air followed them into the evening at the base of the mountains. They reached a river just outside of town where they stopped to rest near the riverbed.  
“You two can follow this river around the opposite side of the campus. Should take you a couple hours,” explained Alita. “I’m going to go back to check in at school and Zadie and I will meet you on the other side at nightfall.”  
Sally crawled out of the duffel bag onto her own two feet. As Timo helped her out, he thought he saw something slither in the river.  
“What kind of animals live in the river?” He asked Alita as she walked back towards the village.  
“The river’s been empty for ages. Rumor has it, a horned serpent lived in it before the school was constructed but no one’s ever seen it.” She wished them good luck and ran back towards the train station.  
As the trio followed the river, the sky darkened and Timo kept his eye on the tranquil river, erasing the idea from his mind. Tall redwoods covered the mountainside, providing them with cover as they moved through the dense forest. Astor looked back at him every couple of minutes, as if at any moment, he would no longer be there. As they walked further along the river, Timo heard a familiar noise; one he couldn’t quite make out. It was almost a hiss but lower beneath the normal sound waves that played in his head. It slowly grew louder and more intense.  
“Do you hear that?” Timo asked, stopping and walking towards the river.  
“I don’t hear anything,” replied Astor, looking into the water where Timo did.  
“Why can’t you hear it? It’s right here.” Timo said confusedly.  
Timo tip toed, carefully, closer to the river, eyes fixed on one spot, the fiery hiss all around him. Then the surface began to vibrate and in the exact spot Timo had his eyes on, the water began to bubble.  
“Tiiiiiiimooooo,” the hiss was clear this time. “TIIIIMOO!”  
“RUN!” yelled Timo.  
Before he could move, he saw the bubbles become a whirlpool. Astor threw sally onto his back and the boys sprinted down the riverbed. Timo whipped his head back just long enough to see a large, dark, glistening tube thrash in the water. He saw the large emerald serpent with huge red eyes and a horn at the tip of its head in its entirety when it slithered out of the water and onto the earth. The gargantuan snake glided towards them, gaining ground with ease, as the boys ran harder into the forest.  
“We can lose it if we run up the mountain,” Astor called out to Timo behind him.  
Even with the pukwudgie on his back, Astor scaled the mountain with ease, years of training for quidditch and other sports on his side. Timo fell behind quickly, and in one blink, he felt his feet being swept off of the ground beneath him as his head smashed into the earth. He only saw black. When he came to, he was face down on wet earth back near the river where the water touched his cheek. As the world came into focus, the moon was now in the sky and the serpent’s big red ugly eyes hovered over his body.  
“What do you want from me?” asked Timo, quietly, too afraid to move.  
“I should ask you the same quesssssstion,” the snake hissed. “You did summon me.”  
“The only thing I want right now is to find my friends,” replied Timo. “They could be in danger.”  
“You’ve put ussss all in danger by coming here,” whispered the snake.  
“I came here because it’s what I have to do,” Timo almost believed himself saying it.  
“They’re coming for you. And you won’t sssstand a chance,” the snake circled Timo as he crawled onto his feet.  
“Then help me,” Timo put his hands up. “It’s you I’ve seen in my dreams isn’t it?”  
The snake continued to circle him.  
“I think whatever I’m looking for has to do with Slytherin something,” said Timo.  
“You ssseek the wand of Salazar Slytherin,” the snake stopped moving. “It belonged to one of the four founders of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After being passed down through generations, it was brought to the New World and the wand was buried here centuries ago by the witch who began the school behind you. A tree grew out of the spot it was buried.”  
“I’m to bring an end to the scourers,” said Timo. “The people who are coming to find me. And my dreams led me to the wand. It’s what I need to stop them. I’m sure of it.”  
“Are you?” asked the snake, “Ssssure? What do you seek? Power? Vengeance? Knowledge, from Ilvermorny? Your dreams led you here but what choice do you make?”  
He hadn’t thought about life after his grandmama, and after her, his aunt Rosalia, in a new land on his own. Just maybe, if the scourers weren’t after him, if they paid for all they’d done to his family, he could learn from the American wizards at Ilvermorny. That possibility seemed so far off. But the wand– the one thing he wanted since he was a child– he could have it now.  
“I don’t stand a chance against scourers without a wand to fight with,” reasoned Timo.  
“You only need to asssk for exactly what you want,” hissed the snake.  
“I want you to take me to the tree that the wand is buried in,” said Timo with authority.  
“If that is your choicccce, very well,” The snake bowed its head and moved towards Timo. At the exact same moment, Astor jumped out from behind a tree, and launched Sally, stones in her hands, at the snake.  
“Stop!” yelled Timo. Defending the snake with his whole body. The pair stopped frozen, confused. “Don’t attack her. She was only trying to help me,” said Timo, realizing only then he could sense who the snake was.  
“She’s a her?” asked Astor, incredulously. “You know, she chased us up a mountain and captured you!”  
“I trust her,” said Timo. “And she’s going to lead us to where we need to be.”  
“How is that that you can talk to her?” asked Astor.  
“He’s a parselmouth,” interjected Sally. “Very few can communicate with snakes.”  
She meant to insult him as she whispered slights at him under her breath. He didn’t know communicating with the snake was a rare gift, but the realization sent a shiver down his spine as the snake thanked him for stopping his friends. The snake slithered her huge scaly body between them and glided towards the base of the mountain. The trio followed the snake to a small stone courtyard with a tree in the middle. The courtyard had four entrances in the middle of each half wall that surrounded the tree. The path surrounding it was made of cobblestone and beautiful plants of different varietals were planted around the walls, near the tree. Dozens of similar trees surrounded the courtyard and under the moonlight, they all glowed green.  
“You only need asssk of it,” said the snake, “the same way you asked me.”  
The snake bowed its huge head and Timo noticed a large crack in the serpent’s horn from Sally’s attack. The snake moved closer to Timo with its head still bowed, as if asking Timo to remove the broken piece from its horn before the snake lifted its head. The piece was no bigger than a coin, but something told Timo this was a gift from the serpent far beyond his understanding. He put it in his pouch for safe keeping. Timo bowed back to the snake before, together with Astor and Sally, he walked ahead into the courtyard. As they came closer, Astor noticed an out of place tall black box, similar to a cabinet or changing closet, outside one of the corners of the garden.  
“What is that thing over in the corner?” Timo meant to ask the snake, but when he turned back, the snake had slipped away into the mountainside shadow.  
Timo reached into his pouch and retrieved the carved triangle. Astor drew his wand and the pukwudgie kept the stones in her hands. Timo faced the tree, in the middle of the courtyard and hissed at it, the same way he did to the snake. After a second, the tree began to purr as it twisted its branches until they transformed themselves into tentacles that pulled the tree open at its base to reveal a cavernous pit under the tree. The tentacles reached down into the pit and returned with a black, long, simple wand. Timo took a step forward, carefully, with big eyes and heavy breathing. He looked back and forth over the wand, which was now at his eye level, waiting for it to do something. The wand lay motionless in the crook of one of the branches. He slowly reached for it, trembling with anxiety and excitement, and picked it up into his hand.  
When he turned around, that excitement sank into the bottom of his gut. Sally the pukwudgie stood in a fighting stance, looking into the corner of the courtyard as Astor pointed his wand at the big black cabinet which now had a door ajar on one side.  
Two black clocked figures with a metal masks appeared from behind the open door. Timo, initially, thought of scourers but these figures wore cloaks and pointed hoods. The scourers never wore clothes like these. The figures who now stood side by side at the entrance of the courtyard did not feel like scourers at all.  
“Well, little Timoteo Buendia,” the taller one spoke through his mask with a British accent. “Looks like you beat us to the punch, as they say.”  
“Who are you?” asked Timo. “Scourers?”  
The pair laughed and Timo deduced the other might be a woman. He reached into his pouch and rolled a clay bead onto the stone ground. Thick purple smoke filled the area of the courtyard and then vanished.  
“Scourers! Those gutless mercenaries are an American invention,” said the man. “Unlike the magic you use. It is a defensive enchantment, am I correct? Only you and your friends can walk on the ground in the courtyard. Very good. No matter, we only came to talk. To you, Timoteo.”  
“Talk to me about what? How do you know me?” asked Timo.  
“Why shouldn’t we know you? The nephew of the great Rosalia Buendia Tepanika. It’s a shame, really, what happened between her and MACUSA. What we are here to do is to help take that wand off of your hands, free of charge,” said the man, with a snicker.  
“I think I like it just fine with me, thank you very much,” retorted Timo, clutching the wand.  
“Now, maybe I can convince you otherwise,” the man said, lowering himself into a crouching position. “Contrary to what you may believe, I am here to retrieve that wand, not for myself but, for a very powerful wizard who is looking to use it for a very specific purpose. We are having a dinner party for a dear friend named Charity Burbage tomorrow night and I’d like to present it to him then.”  
“For what reason does he need it?” asked Timo.  
“Oh, wandlore is very tedious and I wouldn’t want to bore you with minute details. Needless to say, you should count yourselves as very lucky you have me to retrieve this wand. My master is not so magnanimous.”  
“I’ve had enough talking,” shrieked the woman, who drew a wand.  
She launched a curse in Timo’s direction that was fended off by the relic he held. Astor returned a curse of his own that nearly missed. The man shot upright and put his hand up in front of the woman before she could fire off another spell. Sally stepped forward in the hooded figures’ direction and clapped the stones together in her hand, expelling a great force at them that blew off their masks and hoods. The woman was tall and white faced with thin lips and hooded eyes. She had thick black shiny hair that curled. The man was taller and even more pale with long platinum hair. He looked worn, with sunken dark circles around his beady eyes, as if he had just escaped capture.  
“How dare you use magic against me, you filthy thing!” barked the woman, with a certain madness in her eyes.  
“Now now,” said the white-haired man, both hands in the air. “Why don’t we all just calm ourselves. We don’t want anybody to get hurt.”  
“Let me remind you, Lucius,” scoffed the woman, “just who’s in charge here! You’ve already disappointed the dark lord once. I will not let it happen again.”  
Just then, from behind them, Timo heard footsteps approach. Out from behind the snakewood tree, Zadie and Alita appeared with their own wands drawn.  
“Timo, Astor!” Zadie shouted at them. “Are these them? The scourers?”  
“You’ve brought friends,” the man smiled. “The more the merrier, isn’t that right, Bellatrix?”  
“The scourers cower before us,” screamed Bellatrix. She raised her sleeve to show a tattoo of a skull and snake on her forearm.  
“Death eaters!” Alita said in disbelief. “What the hell are death eaters doing on our campus?”  
“Now, Timoteo,” said the man ignoring her. “If I could appeal to your good nature, you see, that wand would also help me out a great deal. I have reason to believe if I don’t fetch this wand for my master, he will ask me to surrender mine.”  
“I think that is a great solution to his dilemma,” said Timo, cheekily. “And I don't give a damn about being good natured.”  
“Well, then,” said the man, with pursed lips, “I’m afraid I don’t have much longer to give you. As it so happens, I am aware of your situation with the scourers. In fact, they were the ones who arranged our arrival with this vanishing cabinet. It only takes a wave of my wand and they will be here in a second. So, let me be curt: give me the wand now or watch all of your friends die.”  
“I’ve come a very long way to find this wand,” said Timo, looking down at it.  
“I know, poor boy,” Lucius replied flippantly.  
“I’m not giving it up that easily. Go!” shouted Timo.  
Astor and the two girls fired off spells as the death eaters transformed into clouds of smoke, flying through the air. Timo pointed the wand of Slytherin and shouted a spell, but nothing happened. They flew in circles around the perimeter of the courtyard firing spells at the four teens, which they struggled to block. Timo tried again to fire a spell, but the wand did not respond. He dodged spells as he met the others under the tree for cover. As the others fired spells into the black smoke that circled the courtyard, Timo tried to understand why the wand wouldn’t give him what he wanted. The snake told him he only needed to ask it for what he wanted. And then he understood, of course. He hissed at it just like he had done the serpent. The wand vibrated in his hands, then stopped. He felt the same swooshing sensation he felt when he held his aunt Rosalia’s wand for the first time and every time Astor kissed him on the lips.  
“We could use a little help here, Timo,” yelled Astor. “They’re killing us.” Timo saw raw cuts on his face and on the girls’ forearms from jinxes. He stepped out from behind them and waved his wand. He shouted a spell and the two death eaters froze midair. He looked at their expressions, both in disbelief, then he slammed them into the ground with his wand. The three remaining teens cheered at the feat of magic as they momentarily let their guard down.  
In their unguarded celebration, Bellatrix shot up from the ground, if possible, with more madness in her eyes. “Avada Kedavra!” she roared. A jet of green light hit the girl right in the chest. Alita’s cheering face deflated as her body collapsed onto the ground.  
“No!” Timo cried as he ran to her in the middle of the courtyard.  
Astor fired spell after spell at the witch as she thwarted each one, easily, laughing and dancing manically. Sally studied her movements, then threw a stone at the witch’s stomach, that took all of the air out of it. Then she clapped her hands together and with a greater force than she produced before, blew Bellatrix into the vanishing cabinet which tumbled down the hillside before it broke into pieces after she magically disappeared inside.  
Zadie threw her body onto her best friend and sobbed as Astor made for the remaining death eater, hunched over on the ground. He lifted himself onto his knees as Astor pointed his wand at the man’s throat.  
“Give me one good reason,” Astor roared through his teeth.  
“I’ll give you several,” hissed the death eater.  
Above them, a dozen black clouds circled in a downward spiral towards them. Timo grabbed Astor by the shoulder and pulled him back into the courtyard. He reached into his pouch and rolled a clay bead into each courtyard entrance. As the black clouds descended from the night sky, they were pushed back from entering the courtyard by an invisible barrier. Instead, the clouds materialized, evenly spread out around the courtyard, each into a different scourer.  
Zadie covered Alita’s corpse even more protectively, while Astor and Timo readied their wands. Sally walked to the edge of the invisible barrier and defiantly, looked at each one of the scourers in the face, as if she could see beyond their black magical veils. One of the scourers walked over to the death eater.  
“Lucius Malfoy,” he greeted him. “I see he found the wand before you did.”  
“The snake showed him the way,” he replied, dusting himself off as the scourer helped him up off of the ground.  
“Don’t forget who is paying you for this job. Quite handsomely, I might add.”  
“Ah, yes,” replied the scourer. “How could we ever thank the great Lord Voldemort? Maybe by facilitating a mass breakout of his followers from Azkaban? A mass breakout that was responsible for your escape? Or was that not enough?”  
“You know what he is capable of if I do not return with the wand,” said Lucius shakily. “I don’t want to have to return with negative assessments of you and your people.”  
“Oh Malfoy,” the scourer brushed his shoulder. “You have your war to fight and we have ours. They just happened to cross paths this time. You’ll get your wand as soon as we kill the boy.”  
They slowly turned their heads to face Timo. He looked at all the scourer’s faces, now, looking in his direction, black veils protecting their identities.  
“We meet at last,” said the scourer. “I’ve heard all about your escapes from my colleagues. Not once, but twice. I must admit, I am most thoroughly impressed. Although, you did have very formidable allies. And now you have none.”  
“He has me!” shouted Astor in support.  
“Ah, Mr Chamami,” the scourer turned his attention to Astor. “I am very disappointed you ended up here. I must admit, I never had any high hopes for your training. Still, you are a traitor and will be treated as such, make no mistake.”  
“What do you want from me?” asked Timo.  
“I’m afraid there’s no easy way to say this, Mr Buendia. We want you dead.”  
“Why?” asked Timo. “I never asked for any of this.”  
“Unfortunately, you represent a false symbol for many people. As soon as your aunt started perpetuating her false prophecy about you, many of those who suspect our return were riled up. Eager to paint us as villains. And our people cannot have that.”  
“Who are your people?”  
“We are the invisible hand, the shadows in the dark, the little birds that watch. We are the forgotten men that keep the proverbial wheels spinning and you, Mr Buendia are a cog. A cog in the system which we must eliminate.”  
“My whole life I’ve been told I don’t belong. Not in school, not in my town, not in my country. That I can’t do it on my own. That I have to follow a certain path. Now, that I have to fulfill some stupid prophecy. I’m sick of it. And I’m sick of running from you people.”  
“I assure you; you won’t be running much longer. You think you stand a chance? You and your friends?”  
“They’ll come looking for me,” said Zadie still sobbing. “The school will notice I’m gone, and they’ll come find me. And they’ll summon MACUSA and the aurors and you’ll all lose.”  
“Oh, you stupid girl,” the scourer looked at her. “Don’t you understand? We are MACUSA. Enough of us, anyway. We are everywhere. Nobody is coming to your rescue anytime soon. And by the time anyone does arrive, you’ll all be dead.”  
The scourer waved his wand and on command, the rest of the group unloaded hundreds of spells at the invisible barrier dissolving it completely in seconds. Completely unguarded, wiping her tears, Zadie stood up back to back with the boys, Sally in the center, ready to defend themselves. One scourer sent a jinx at them, but Timo’s triangle intercepted it. Then they fired another and another and the three defended spell after spell until Astor took one in the shoulder and Timo in the leg and Zadie on the cheek. No matter how many spells they each blocked, more and more gradually made their way through and wounded each one of them, weakening their small defensive barrier. This couldn’t be it, Timo thought. Is this how it would end? A sad attempt at defending himself against scourers in the middle of the night?  
And then the curses stopped. Astor was on one knee, Zadie’s face full of blood. It took Timo a second to realize the earth was shaking underneath them. From the thick brush behind the courtyard, a Wampus carrying someone on its back emerged. It pounced on one the closest scourers who shot curses at it to no avail before breaking their line surrounding the teens. When it stopped, she climbed off its back: his aunt Rosalia. Timo’s heart pumped faster than he knew it could and his eyes cried without permission. At the sight of her, the stiffness he felt for Astor, the jagged guilt tying him to her death, crumbled and he ran to him to kiss him on the mouth.  
“I told you we would see each other again,” she wiped the tears from the boys’ eyes.  
“I thought I lost you,” Timo confessed.  
“You can never lose me,” she replied. “Put these on your wounds.”  
Rosalia plucked leaves from the snakewood tree and placed one on a cut on Timo’s hand which healed instantly. Astor and Zadie followed suit. Sally, the pukwudgie, slumped over to Rosalia and hugged her right leg. From up the hill, following behind his aunt were four natives from the Tepanika tribe. Three, Timo recognized from the council and the healer witch, who, at the sight of her slow movement, no doubt, was the cause for their late arrival.  
The other three comprised of the council child, the center witch and most surprising, the councilman who voted no to Timo’s request and who was most vocal against his aunt. Each of them took responsibility for one of the teens and drew their own wands.  
“Leave now,” his aunt spoke to the scourers. “And none of you will have to die.”  
“Mr Buendia,” replied the scourer who spoke before. “Are you still dressing in women’s clothing? I forget, how are you and MACUSA doing?”  
“Better than you will be doing if you don’t leave now,” his aunt answered with calm.  
“You and your Indians don’t scare us. We’ve driven you out before and we’ll do it again. Only this time, I’ll kill you and your freak nephew.”  
“You underestimate me and my family,” she countered. “And my name is Rosalia!”  
She fired a curse and so did all of her allies behind her. And before Timo knew it, a battle broke out. The healing witch and Astor dueled with two scourers. Zadie and the councilman took on two more. Sally jumped onto the Wampus’ back and charged ahead into the wall of scourers, dividing them further. His aunt battled four of them at once. As Timo ran to engage, he was stopped short.  
“That wand is mine!” shouted Malfoy. He drew his wand. Timo palmed Slytherin's wand.  
He was not as well versed in dueling as Malfoy was, he was certain. But he knew he would not lose. He struck first, a stunning spell, which Malfoy blocked. And then another one and Malfoy returned curses of his own. Timo’s fluid physicality, moving and jumping, as if in a fist fight, threw Malfoy's focus.  
“Nobody’s ever taught you to duel properly,” Malfoy launched another curse at Timo, moving his body to match the battle.  
“Nobody’s ever taught you to fight,” Timo lunged at Malfoy and punched him on the nose while simultaneously hurling a stunning spell right into his chest. Malfoy tumbled violently down the mountainside out of view.  
Timo ran back to his aunt who was still exchanging curses with four scourers. With a large swoop of her wand, one of the scourers toppled over as she managed to cut down to three. Timo saw the fallen scourer begin to convulse on the courtyard ground before the body became rigid and then limp. The black veil disappeared but only an ugly purple goop remained where a person’s face should have been. Surely, they were all protected by some charm, should they die in battle, so would their identity.  
Timo joined his aunt in battle and after a minute, he realized there were too many. As Zadie and the councilman were forced back into the courtyard, Zadie was launched into the snakewood tree and knocked unconscious. Astor defended curse after curse from multiple scourers. And just as one would have delivered a devastating blow, the Wampus, with Sally on its back, dove to take the curse instead. Sally was thrown off the cat’s back and the Wampus lay wounded in the forest brush. Sally quickly returned to the animal’s side and protected it from incoming curses.  
Drawing one of the scourers away from his aunt, Timo joined Astor’s side to fight next to him. The scourer who spoke taunted Astor with a binding spell and then a spell that stretched Astor’s limbs. He cried out in pain.  
“How does it feel?” asked the scourer. “To be on the other side of the torture. Didn’t you tell your little boyfriend that it was you who tortured that girl into insanity?”  
“Shut… up!” cried Astor, with more rage in his eyes than Timo had ever seen in anyone.  
He cried out at the top of his lungs the most guttural growl, contracting every muscle in his body so that he broke the binding curse. The magical force of the spell rebounded, launching the scourer fifty feet into the trees. Exhausted by the great feat, Astor collapsed onto the courtyard floor. Timo, as quick as he could, launched a clay bead from under his shirt at the scourer he opposed that froze him. He dropped to Astor’s side and rolled him onto his back. He chewed leaves from the snakewood tree, which he summoned with his wand, until they became an herby pasty mulch which he bird fed to Astor. As soon as he lifted his lips from Astor’s, his eyes opened and Timo fell back onto his hands, relieved.  
“I didn’t torture that girl,” he whispered, wearily. “They tried to make me; I couldn’t do it.”  
“I believe you,” replied Timo, brushing his hand through Astor’s hair.  
He looked up to the battle to find his aunt battling three scourers and a returned Lucius Malfoy. The councilman helped Sally defend the Wampus and the three remaining natives battled six more scouers. He looked down at a wounded Astor and felt the fire again, the rage inside. Timo knew the only way to take back the upper hand was to lose the thing he wanted most. He withdrew all of the explosion beads from his pouch, molding them together into one huge ball. He set it in the middle of the courtyard, away from Astor and Zadie before he sent a bolt of lightning high into the air with the wand of Slytherin to call everyone’s attention.  
“This is what you want?” he yelled across the field at Malfoy, displaying the wand high in the air. “This is what you all think gives you power? These wands? Well, I don’t want it!”  
Timo drove the wand from over his head, tip first, into the clay ball. On impact, the clay acted as a bomb and blew the wand open into a million pieces. The explosion knocked Timo back into one of the courtyard’s half walls. The force of it shook the mountain, shook him wide open, into nothing, everything, he felt that fire, burning inside, all over, cloth fused with wide open flesh, boils through raw soft pink slippery skin, his grandmother’s face, reunited with her daughter, reunited with her daughter, espiritus, mujeres fuertes de hierro, liars, secret keepers, that love you betray to protect, the fire in his gut, through his throat, his mother’s smile one last time.  
The explosion knocked everyone, friend and foe alike, onto the ground. His aunt Rosalia first, with a start, ran to Timo’s side. He came to, quickly, to the world blurry around him. He could feel the blood in his ears, but his aunt crouched over him made him feel safe.  
“You brave brave boy,” she smiled at him, stroking his hair. The natives, together with sally, dragged the Wampus into the courtyard and piled in close together, exhausted from fight. The scourers, now only nine remained, tried to calm a hysterical Malfoy, cursing at the top of his lungs.  
“You stupid stupid boy!” Malfoy shrieked at Timo. “You will most definitely meet a very sticky end!” Then he transformed into a black smoke cloud and took off in flight.  
“It’s over witch, the scourer called out. “The children are all as good as dead and we outnumber you. Give it up before we kill you all.”  
His aunt rose to her feet, through her exhaustion and stood, ready. The natives stood behind her. “As you wish,” the scourer signaled to the group behind him.  
They launched spell after spell but Rosalia and the natives made their way back and forth through the courtyard, strenuously, defending each spell, never able to successfully launch an offense of their own. Timo, still unable to stand, knew there was no way out without more help. And, as if answering his call, the same thunderbird from Chop Hinge, flew in overhead with huge wings, high above the battle. It flapped its large wings hard and formed clouds above them. A huge thunder sounded from the skies as the bird dove directly into the ground, bringing bolts of lightning with it, striking the scourers down one by one. By the time the bird reached the ground of the courtyard, only two scourers remained. It landed on the Wampus, protectively covering it with its spread open wings. Rosalia, from the clouds overhead, produced her own lightning bolt and drove it into one of the two remaining scourers. Only the one who spoke earlier remained. Rosalia trapped him, animating the tree’s roots in the ground underneath him. She waved off his black veil to reveal a simple looking man’s face with dark hair and a strong pointed nose. He looked at her with disgust.  
“Don't come near me. Don’t touch me, you abomination,” he spat in Rosalia’s face.  
“This is for my family,” she told him as she waved her wand over him.  
The roots that trapped the scourer began to tighten and disintegrate around the man’s body as he began to heat, skin boiling and slowly disintegrate from the bottom up. As the man wailed in agony, two witches and a wizard in long robes descended into the courtyard. The witch that lead the group was a dark-skinned woman with big, puffy hair and a seal on her robes.  
“Headmistress,” Rosalia greeted her as soon as she arrived.  
“Rosalia? What is all this?” The headmistress looked around at the battlefield.  
“Scourers,” replied Rosalia, gesturing to the burning man, exhaustion in her voice.  
“Here’s your proof,” she said. “I told you they’d been after me for years.”  
“So, it’s true,” she yielded. “They’re building an army again. Just like you said.”  
“I’m afraid so,” Rosalia looked down at the screaming man. “I’m sure you recognize this one is an auror for MACUSA.”  
The headmistress walked to the man, still screaming in pain.  
“MacDuff, is it? How long has MACUSA known?” she shouted at him, ignoring his cries.  
“How long have they kept Ilvermorny in the dark? How long have they ignored our native family and fostered the return of these terrorists? How many of you are there?”  
“A war is coming,” the man laughed, now delirious, half of his body turned to dust. “We are everywhere. In the government, in your tribes, in your school. Whenever you think you’re safe, there we are. The boy has no real power. The prophecy was false. We will rise again. And you will lose.”  
As the spell reached the man’s neck, his agonizing cries were too much for Timo to bear. He covered his ears as the man's head turned to dust.  
“I’m sorry I never believed you,” the headmistress didn’t look into Rosalia’s eyes as she spoke. “I wasn't a very good friend.”  
“You went on your journey and I went on mine,” Rosalia replied.  
“I will make this right,” the headmistress assured her. “You know I will make this right.”  
“The past will always remain the past as long as we are willing to forge a better future,” Rosalia extended her hand. The headmistress met it with hers.  
In the courtyard, the fatally wounded Wampus cried out, Sally and the thunderbird still sat by its side. Rosalia walked over and plopped down beside it. She wedged her legs under the cat’s big head and stroked its fur as the Wampus drifted off and eventually stopped breathing. As soon as the cat passed, the thunderbird flapped its wings and took off. Sally wiped tears from her big gray eyes then helped Rosalia off of the ground.  
“We’ll have the groundskeepers give it a proper burial,” said the headmistress. “The professors will help the children to the infirmary, and you can all stay here tonight.”  
Every part of Timo’s body ached and moving was almost impossible. But he looked up into the sky to watch the thunderbird fly away, as his aunt helped Astor to his feet. The two professors who came with the headmistress carried Zadie and the natives covered Alita’s body in leaves from the tree.  
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” his aunt sat down beside him. “After I escaped from the cottage, I went to a safehouse I’ve kept hidden, in case something like this were to happen. After a couple days, I went back to the Tepanikas to find you, but you were already gone. Are you mad at me?”  
“No,” replied Timo. “I thought you were dead. I blamed Astor. I was so angry and scared. I’m only sad that now you have to run away again because of me.”  
“He’s imperfect, but I think he has proven himself to you, don't you?” said his aunt, looking in Astor’s direction. “I don’t have to run anywhere without you, I promise. You go, I go. Anywhere. We are a family, remember?”  
“What if I don’t want to go?” he asked, timidly.  
“Well,” his Aunt hugged him. “The headmistress of this school was once my best friend. I bet if I spoke to her, I could pull some strings for you to attend this year.”  
“You’d do that for me?”  
“I’d do anything for you,” she promised him.  
“Will I be able to see you again?”  
“Well, I imagine, you’ll need somewhere to live in between terms. I’d love to have you. I’ve lived peacefully hidden for many years before, we can do it again.”  
“What’s going to happen now? With the scourers?” he asked.  
“They will no doubt, build their army and come after us again someday,” she answered. “And we will keep fighting.”  
He had no wand; his grandmother was dead, and his aunt was a wanted criminal. He had too much to say to Astor and no idea where he would go after the infirmary. He had no clue what he would do next but for the first time in his life, the choice was his.

Days later, Timo sat in a study at Ilvermorny main tower, with a desk in between him and the President of MACUSA, Abel Younghall. Headmistress Picquery agreed to sit in on the interview, on Timo’s behalf.  
“Thank you for agreeing to answer a few questions, Mr Buendia,” said the President. “I’m very sorry for the loss of your grandmother and everything you have been through since entering the United States. I have a few questions to ask you about your aunt.”  
“We’ve already told the congress, in a letter signed by my student,” Picquery interjected, “that we have no knowledge of Rosalia Tepanika’s whereabouts. Timo has only known of his aunt’s existence for less than a month.”  
“Right,” replied Younghall. “It’s just very peculiar that she and the Tepanika tribe showed up the same night the scourers arrived on campus to kill Mr Beundia.”  
“Which is why I’m sure congress will be conducting a lengthy investigation into how scourers managed to circumvent the aurors protections and invade our school,” the headmistress pressed.  
“Headmistress, we have every intention of finding whoever was responsible for the attempt on Mr Buendia’s life,” assured the President. “Mr Buendia, I wonder if you might describe the scourers to me. Did you manage to see any of their faces?”  
“I didn’t see much,” Timo cleared his throat. “It was dark. I know I saw a man with dark hair and a small nose.”  
“A small nose,” repeated the President, unconvinced. “Listen, Mr Buendia, if you don’t trust me, it will be a lot harder for us to help you.”  
“The best way you can help this boy is by keeping him safe,” replied Picquery. “Which is why I’m asking for MACUSA to set up a fund for this young man’s entire tuition for three years. He’ll be safe here on campus and we are happy to house him on Holiday.”  
“I’ll see what I can do,” answered Younghall. “Oh, and about that letter– the request for emergency citizenship for you and your friend, I’ll be looking into it myself.”  
“You’re President of MACUSA!” said Timo emphatically. “I know you’ll come through.”  
In fact, Headmistress Picquery had explained to Timo that it was in the President’s interest to keep Timo at Ilvermorny. The last thing MACUSA wanted was for the magical population to lose faith in its organization. If the President wanted to keep up any type of decorum, he would have to cave on financing Timo’s education and granting him citizenship. For Timo, it was more than enough.  
“We will keep in touch,” the President rose to his feet and exited the room.  
“You did good,” Picquery told him. “You think you can keep it up?”  
“I’ll do anything for my family,” Timo replied, his aunt Rosalia in his mind.  
“Professor?” He examined the headmistresses wand. It was a light-colored wood Timo had only seen the Natives carry. “Do I get to choose a wand?”  
“Well, if I’m answering practically, then I’d say ‘yes, you get everything everyone else who enrolls at Ilvermorny gets, including a wand.’ If I’m answering as your Professor and Headmaster, I’ll say, ‘the wand chooses the wizard.’”  
Timo looked down into his hand at the piece of serpents horn he saved from the night of the battle. After they were taken to the infirmary, they all healed perfectly. Zadie was happy to show off her war wounds and explained to everyone on campus who’d listen how those British kids at Hogwarts weren’t the only ones with fight in them. She praised her best friend, Alita, as a hero to anyone who asked about her. Astor finally came clean to Timo about his involvement with the scourers. It was true, he did torture a girl, but when he couldn’t kill her, the scourers made him watch, as they tortured her into insanity. It was the way to show Astor what fate awaited him if he ever betrayed the scourers. He understood when Timo still expressed hesitation about his ability to trust him. But Timo couldn’t deny the butterflies he felt every time Astor walked into a room. They decided to start over.  
The same night they rested in the infirmary, Picquery and Rosalia made a deal. They decided the events of the night would have to be reported to the authorities and Rosalia would undoubtedly, be linked to them. To protect Rosalia from MACUSA and the scourers, they agreed to leave out Timo’s first visit to his aunt on their reported timeline. As far as MACUSA was concerned, Rosalia showed up for her nephew with the Tepanika tribe who came to Timo’s assistance after he visited their tribe at his own will.  
For her part, Rosalia would go back into hiding and together with the help of the few members of the Tepanika she could trust, try to bring the whole tribe and as many others as they could convince to aide them in the coming war. She would write, through the Tepanika tribe, to Picquery, to inform Timo of her whereabouts at the end of each term so he could visit his aunt.  
Astor waited outside, as Timo exited the study in the main tower where he met with the President. He greeted him with a wink and a hand on his cheek.  
“I saw him leave before you did. He looked upset,” Astor informed him.  
“Did he look familiar to you?” asked Timo, half accusingly.  
“I’ve told you everything about that time that I remember. I thought we were going to move past this,” Astor said anxiously.  
“I’m sorry,” Timo apologized. “It’ll get easier as soon as all this goes away.”  
Astor nodded in agreement.  
“So, are you ready for the ceremony?”  
“I’m ready to be the two oldest students being sorted.”  
“Oh, don’t worry. This is exciting! We get to find out our house. Even though we were already chosen by an actual thunderbird.” They both laughed.  
“Hey, do you ever wonder what would happen if you choose what you want instead of choosing what you know you’re supposed to do?”  
“All the time. But, luckily, right now, what I choose and what I want are both you.”  
Astor laughed as Timo shook his head at his blatant cheese.  
“I’ve never actually thanked you,” admitted Timo, “for sticking by me through all of this.”  
“You don’t have to,” replied Astor. “I’d do it all again. I– I love you.”  
Timo’s eyes widened at Astor’s admission. It was one he was not ready for. If he was being honest, he cared about Astor more than he cared about anyone before in his life, but the reality of the last few months still stung whenever he thought about it. Anytime they tried talking about it, honestly, their words became too hot and jagged to handle without cutting each other with them.  
“It’s okay, you don’t have to say it back. I know it’s fast. But when we’re sorted together as thunderbirds, I know it will be the start of a new chapter for us. I can’t wait.”  
“I found the note you left in my notebook,” Timo showed him the folded paper from his aunt’s house. “I haven’t read it yet.”  
“Wait until after the ceremony.” Astor extended his hand.  
They made their way to the sorting room and waited for the professors to arrive. The sorting room in Ilvermorny also doubled as the welcoming foyer. The circular room was surrounded by stairs that lead up to a balcony where four carved pillars stood, each representing one of the four houses of Ilvermorny. First was the Wampus, fierce and loyal, often favoring warriors. Second was the Pukwudgie, nurturing and caring, often favoring healers. Third was the Thunderbird, brave and selfless, often favoring adventurers. Last was the Horned Serpent, cunning and intelligent, often favoring scholars. When being sorted, a student stood on a gordian knot in the center of the circle room. When the student was chosen, the carved statue for that house reacted to the student: the Wampus carving roared, the Pukwudgie raised its arrow, the Thunderbird flapped its wings and the Horned Serpent glowed. Usually, only the older students watched along as new students were sorted into houses but being that Timo and Astor got a late start to term, every student had already been sorted. This meant that the entire student body witnessed the sorting for the pair.  
Picquery stepped out onto the balcony and after eulogizing Alita and hosting a moment of silence, she welcomed the students to a special sorting ceremony. She introduced Timo and Astor to the student body. Timo fidgeted with the small horn fragment from the serpent in his hands as she called on Astor to be sorted first. He turned to Timo before stepping into the circle.  
“I’ll be waiting for you on the other side,” he squeezed both of Timo’s hands and then shuffled into the center of the room. He stepped onto the knot, deliberately, and posed in a crossed arm stance, waiting for the carved statue to react. Timo looked upon him, anxiously as seconds passed. Finally, the Thunderbird flapped its wings and all of the Thunderbirds cheered for their newest member. Astor threw his hands up at the decision, fully expecting it, and joined his house with confidence.  
Timo retrieved the note Astor left him from his pocket as Picquery waved him into the circle. Timo slowly walked onto the knot and looked up at the statues. Almost immediately, each statue reacted, and the students let out an audible gasp.  
“Well, this is quite the surprise,” she announced. “Once in a generation, the wizard gets to choose his house. So, the choice is yours, Timoteo. Which house do you choose?”  
Timo silently read the note Astor wrote for him, smiled, and then found his eyes on the balcony. Astor noticed the note in Timo’s hand and smiled back down at him. Timo remembered the thunderbird that guided them on their journey. He remembered his grandmama and her lessons in healing. Sally, complaining. He thought of his aunt, the strongest, most courageous person he had ever met. The Wampus who gave its life to save them in battle. Then he looked down into his hand at the small white horn fragment under Astor’s note.  
“I choose the horned serpent,” he shouted.  
And as the students from his new house and the rest of the houses cheered, he found Astor’s eyes in the commotion, looking back at him with an even bigger satisfying smile. He did love him. But he wanted this, too. His life at Ilvermorny would be his own to forge. Astor would surely understand. With the small horn fragment and Astor’s note in his hand, he ran up the stairs to meet his new house members as he eagerly awaited to, finally, be chosen by his wand.


End file.
